More than 2,000 people live in Kan Taw village in Sagaing region. Before the new health center was built, the midwife provided health services to the community at a house in the middle of the village. She had limited equipment and the house was old and difficult to keep clean.
Now, there is a new rural health centre that was designed and built by UNOPS with funding from 3MDG. The community can visit the centre during opening hours but the midwife, Daw Myint Myint Po, is available to give emergency care at all times. Staff accommodation has been built right next door, which makes it is easier for the midwife to be on hand whenever she is needed.
Daw Myint Myint Po has been a midwife for 23 years. Since she was assigned to Kan Taw village two years ago, she has built trust and relationships with the community and they know they can rely on her. In this village alone she has helped 20 women give birth.
She also conducts outreach visits, where she is able to identify pregnant women who need further support. They set up regular ante-natal appointments, where women receive necessary immunizations and nutritional supplements. The midwife also conducts health education sessions for mothers and check-ups for mother and baby during pregnancy and after the delivery.
Ma Thwae Thwar Win, 32, first met Daw Myint Myint Po six months ago when she found out she was pregnant. Not too long ago, at an antenatal care visit, she was told she would have to deliver in the hospital because of the position of the baby.
“I am not scared, the midwife will take good care of me,” says Ma Thwae Twar Win, who has already prepared everything for the baby at home.
Every day, Daw Myint Myint Po receives about 10 phone calls from people with all kinds of symptoms. Sometimes she has to help women give birth in the middle of the night. When people call her, she normally walks to their house or rents a motorbike.
Su Su, 36, delivered her newborn baby at home with the help of the midwife. “When the baby was coming, I was really struggling; I knew I couldn’t deliver him alone. My relatives called the midwife,” she says.
Daw Myint Myint Po went quickly to her house and helped her deliver. “After the delivery she stayed at our house, taking care of me and the baby. She also came to my house every day the next week to check everything was going well.”
The new health centre for the village has a delivery room and an emergency room, with medicines and equipment always on hand. Births attended by a skilled person in a facility can contribute to reducing the dangers of childbirth for mother and baby.
“With this new centre, it is easier for me to convince the pregnant women to deliver at a clinic instead of their houses because it’s cleaner and more private” says Daw Myint Myint Po.
The construction of this sub rural health center is part of a USD 12 million project to build 82 health facilities with onsite staff accommodation across the country. The rural and sub-rural health centres are financed by 3MDG’s donors - Australia, Denmark, the European Union, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America - and designed and implemented by UNOPS.
