Midwives Should be Empowered and Elevated, Not Subsumed by Process
Posted almost 9 years ago by Nicholas M Perrino
"Midwives need 'a purpose that's bigger than themselves,' says Barbara Stilwell, senior director of health workforce solutions at the NGO Intrahealth International, in this week's podcast. 'Self-actualization is a basic need for people,' she says, 'but when we look at health care, one of the things we do is we task shift.'
Task shifting is a concept being explored in many low resource settings whereby certain treatments that previously only doctors were allowed to perform are delegated to auxiliary health workers.
Instead of task shifting, Stilwell suggests giving greater purpose to health care jobs. 'There is now some idea in my world...that we need to be coming up with big ideas that are going to change the way we look at these issues in a way that is much more profound than this.'
Autonomy and having independent success in one's work has been shown to increase investment in health care jobs, says Stilwell."