Proud Advocate of Midwifery – Dr Rayapudi Haripriya

Midwives handle things as good as an obstetrician. They bring in the added advantage - human touch!

Collaborative care is of utmost importance because some women face medical difficulties related to their health or the health of their baby. Obstetricians are overworked and need to focus on high-risk pregnancies while low-risk mothers are handled by clinically trained, competent midwives. World over, obstetricians have vouched for midwives as their trusted colleagues. In India, too, this is beginning to happen. Obstetricians have started to understand the benefits of midwifery and the value of collaborative care. There is a growing realization that India needs more midwives to meet the healthcare needs of its growing population.
Dr Haripriya Rayapudi is one among many clinicians who is an advocate of midwife-led care for pregnant women. She is a compassionate clinician who works as a civil surgeon and medical superintendent at Vanasthalipuram’s Area Hospital in Hyderabad. During her tenure as a gynecologist, she had very few interactions or associations with midwives. Ever since she began working closely with midwives, she has experienced positive impacts of collaborative care. She is starting to have great admiration for the efforts that the midwives put in.

She credits them for being a pillar of support to the mothers and the babies. In her opinion, midwives are a blessing to government hospitals that are usually understaffed. Midwives share the workload and give humanized care to mothers who are often ignored by busy nurses and doctors. She says, “Midwives handle things as good as an obstetrician would. They bring in the human touch!”

She emphasizes on how the midwives are there with the mother through all the stages of pregnancy and birth. They counsel the mother and stand by her throughout the birthing journey. This makes it easy for obstetricians to concentrate on high-risk pregnancies while midwives take care of low-risk mothers. She says that midwives are an indispensable part of the workforce as they assist the mother and respect her choices and preferences. Collaborative care allows enough time for the obstetricians to attend to other important clinical and non-clinical tasks.

She hopes that the government recognizes this on a large scale and wishes for more midwives to be inducted into medical institutions all over India.

4-1-1229/1, Bogulkunta, Hyderabad – 500001. Telangana, India.

Job Title: International Clinical Midwifery Educator, Fernandez Foundation

Accountable to: Director of Midwifery Services, Fernandez Foundation

Mission

We are committed to providing access to excellent, equitable, evidence-based and respectful healthcare for women and the new-born. We believe that life is sacred and precious, and we do our best to affirm and preserve it always.

Vision

A world in which every woman and child has access to high-quality, compassionate care, that enables a life of respect and dignity.

1. Teaching and Training

Provide clinical supervision and leadership working alongside the national midwifery educators (NMEs) team, monitoring, and coaching, during pre-planned sessions, ensuring midwives attain their clinical competencies, by participating in their clinical assessment process.
Participate in the preparation of Personal Development Plans for staff and contribute to annual appraisals.
Working closely with the NME team to support development of teaching and training.
Professional Midwifery Training: Contribute to teaching midwifery subjects and women centred care in the twelve months nurse midwife practitioner education recognised by the Indian Nursing Council (INC).
Training and development-Support the delivery of Midwifery care. Reflective learning and journal clubs encouraging midwives to use the sessions in reading evidence-based articles and translating to clinical practice
Establishing and maintaining systems to record education, training, and development activities.
Evaluation of education, training, and development activities
Ensuring that education, training and development activities are evidence based.
Assist the Fernandez Foundation with training and development strategy for the professional development of midwives, doulas, additional birth support staff

2. Clinical Mentorship

Provide clinical mentoring by providing 80% clinical leadership working alongside our students and qualified midwives encouraging and promoting best practice.
Leading by clinical expertise in developing midwifery confidence caring for mothers in the midwife led centre.
Providing clinical leadership and communicating with women birth options promoting midwife led care in the midwife led unit

3. Professional Knowledge

Demonstrate practitioner competence and professionalism.
Demonstrate a high level of knowledge and expertise relevant to the post.
Demonstrate knowledge of relevant legislation and standards.
Demonstrate an understanding of key issues and priorities in the Indian context.
Demonstrate commitment to educational and professional development issues.
Demonstrate skills in teaching and facilitation.

4. Research and Audit

Demonstrates strong knowledge of research methods and knowledge of the challenges and opportunities to develop research, audit and evidence-based practice.
Encouraging and supporting the research agenda at local and national level
Encouraging research and audit development in the activities of the midwife led unit
Developing Research and clinical tools sharing the outcomes of the MLU

The above job specification is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all duties involved and consequently, the post holder may be required to perform other duties as appropriate to the post which may be assigned to him/her from time to time and to contribute to the development of the post while in office.

Job Title: National Midwifery Educator, Fernandez Foundation

Accountable to: Director of Midwifery Services, Fernandez Foundation

Mission
We are committed to providing access to excellent, equitable, evidence-based and respectful healthcare for women and the new-born. We believe that life is sacred and precious and we do our best to affirm and preserve it always.

Vision
A world in which every woman and child has access to high-quality, compassionate care, that enables a life of respect and dignity.

1. Teaching and Training

Provide clinical supervision and leadership working alongside the midwifery team, monitoring and coaching, during pre-planned sessions, ensuring midwives attain their clinical competencies, by participating in their clinical assessment process.
Participate in the preparation of Personal Development Plans for staff and contribute to annual appraisals.
Professional Midwifery Training: Contribute to teaching midwifery subjects and women centred care in the twelve months nurse midwife practitioner education recognised by the Indian Nursing Council (INC).
Training and development-Support the delivery of Midwifery care. Reflective learning and journal clubs encouraging midwives to use the sessions in reading evidence-based articles and translating to clinical practice
Establishing and maintaining systems to record education, training and development activities.
Evaluation of education, training and development activities
Ensuring that education, training and development activities are evidence based.
Assist the Fernandez Foundation with training and development strategy for the professional development of midwives, doulas, additional birth support staff

2. Clinical Mentorship

Provide clinical mentoring by providing 80% clinical leadership working alongside our students and qualified midwives encouraging and promoting best practice.
Leading by clinical expertise in developing midwifery confidence caring for mothers in the midwife led centre.
Providing clinical leadership and communicating with women birth options promoting midwife led care in the midwife led unit

3. Professional Knowledge

Demonstrate practitioner competence and professionalism.
Demonstrate a high level of knowledge and expertise relevant to the post.
Demonstrate knowledge of relevant legislation and standards.
Demonstrate an understanding of key issues and priorities in the Indian context.
Demonstrate commitment to educational and professional development issues.
Demonstrate skills in teaching and facilitation.

4. Research and Audit

Demonstrates strong knowledge of research methods and knowledge of the challenges and opportunities to develop research, audit and evidence-based practice.
Encouraging and supporting the research agenda at local and national level
Encouraging research and audit development in the activities of the midwife led unit
Developing Research and clinical tools sharing the outcomes of the MLU

Who is a Midwife

A midwife is a person who has completed a midwifery education programme that is based on the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) Essential Competencies for Midwifery Practice and the framework of the ICM Global Standards for Midwifery Education. They provide care for women during pregnancy, labour, postpartum period as well as the care of the newborn baby.