The Department of Midwifery and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Mater Dei Hospital are running training courses in acute life support in obstetrics for the first time in Malta.
Upon completion of the training, the midwives and obstetricians attending the course will be certified as providers of this type of care, according to the standards set by an international organisation.
The organisation, Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics (ALSO) helps physicians and other healthcare providers develop and maintain the knowledge and skills they need to effectively manage potential emergencies during the perinatal period. The programme additionally serves as an aid for training healthcare professions in obstetrics.
Up to now, Maltese professionals had to undertake this training in the UK provided by ALSO (UK), which emphasises labour and delivery room emergencies but also covers prenatal risk assessment, first-trimester bleeding, consultant relationships, helping parents cope with a birth crisis, and information on reducing medical malpractice risk.
The ALSO programme was developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin, way back in 1991 and has since become part of standard training for midwives and obstetricians in over 50 countries. Due to overwhelming demand, three consecutive courses are being provided by a group of certified instructors from ALSO (UK), together with a Maltese obstetrician and gynaecologist, Jean Calleja-Agius, herself being the first Maltese certified ALSO instructor in the UK.
The local coordinator of the course is Mary Buttigieg Said, Practice Development Midwife.
This training was made possible due to funding support from the Mater Dei Training Fund, together with funding provided by the Directorate for Nursing and Midwifery, and the Postgraduate Training Centre of the Ministry of Health, the Elderly and Community Care. This training will enhance the multi-disciplinary care given to women giving birth, standardising the management of mothers and their newborn infants facing life-threatening difficulties during delivery.
Addressing the course participants and lecturers, the Director of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Prof. Mark Brincat said that ALSO courses being run in Malta fitted in with the overall strategy of whenever possible having as many essential ‘Competencies’ courses run in Malta so as to save our trainees and other health professionals from having to travel abroad and undertake unnecessary expense to achieve such training.
He also congratulated the course organisers for this internationally recognised course, and said that there will be others to follow as they will be encouraged. He also thanked the sources of funding that made this project possible and said that this will be part of the ongoing process of postgraduate training that the department is involved in.