The Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) held the Qatar International Women and Newborn Health Conference, which focused on global challenges that impact the health of women and their children.
Sessions held as part of the Qatar International Women and Newborn Health Conference, which is the first such event held in the region, covered the spectrum of women’s and newborn health issues, with a focus on health profession education for nurses and midwives.
Organised under the theme ‘Supporting Excellence in Perinatal Well-being’, the conference was aligned with the Qatar National Health Strategy 2018-2022 priority focus on ‘Healthy Women Leading to Healthy Pregnancies.’ There were also sessions dedicated to the objectives of improving capabilities to monitor causes of maternal complications and introducing national protocols and guidelines for maternity care, including infertility and cesarean delivery.
Haila Swaid Salim, Executive Director of Nursing at the Women’s Wellness and Research Center and Executive Sponsor of the conference, said as the largest provider of maternal and newborn healthcare services in Qatar, HMC is committed to raising the expertise and competence of the healthcare professionals - nurses and midwives - who provide the majority of care to the country’s women and newborn babies.
“Working alongside Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), Sidra Medicine, and private sector colleagues, HMC has significantly invested in developing hospital facilities and broadening services provided to women and newborns. We have advanced a program to implement midwifery education, in partnership with international and in-country university partners, and this conference is providing an international platform to share our progress to date and to highlight our future ambitions to support excellence in perinatal well-being,” she said.
The importance of introducing midwifery care service and providing integrated high-quality maternity services across the various stages of pregnancy, including antepartum, intrapartum, and post-delivery was also discussed with HMC’s successful piloting of a bespoke community midwifery service for postnatal mothers being highlighted.
Dr. Nicola Ryley, Chief Nursing Officer at HMC and Executive Sponsor of the conference emphasized the importance of the event, both nationally and internationally, noting that 2020 is the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Year of the Nurse and Midwife.
“It is an ideal platform to highlight the importance of the roles of nursing and midwifery in achieving universal health coverage,” said Dr. Ryley.
Dr. Ryley noted that Qatar is committed to meeting the needs of its growing population by further developing these professional services through delivering HMC’s Maternity, Women’s and Newborns Service Transformation Plan.
