Are CMWs Accessible in Sindh?

Abstract

As one of the measures for decreasing high maternal mortality, the Mother, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Programme introduced a cadre of Community Midwives (CMWs) who are trained skilled birth attendants. By June 2010, CMWs were trained in 18 out of 23 districts of the province, hence this study was proposed. However, their official deployment was delayed and took place only two weeks before the initiation of the fieldwork for the study. The research focused on the activities that were carried out by the CMWs during the gap between the completion of the training and official deployment. It also gauged whether those CMWs who are now officially deployed are accessible to the low income community women or not?

This research was conducted as a qualitative study in 9 randomly sampled districts and explored both the hindering and facilitative factors to accessibility. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with randomly sampled CMWs in each district (9), group interviews with families of CMWs selected through purposive sampling (18) and in-depth interviews with community women who were delivered by CMWs (9) and by daiyan (9). The accessibility was assessed in multiple dimensions including economic, social, cultural, psychological and geographical forms. It identified factors that hinder and facilitate accessibility of CMWs to the women and of women to the CMWs.

Citation

Anon. Are CMWs Accessible in Sindh? Arjumand And Associates, Islamabad, Pakistan (2012) 6 pp.

Are CMWs Accessible in Sindh?

Published 1 January 2012