ROLE DESCRIPTION

At MBHS, a registered midwife works closely with pregnant women, assists in births, conducts post-delivery assessments, supports the Under 5 clinic services and provides family planning counselling to women and their families.

All MBHS registered midwives must provide patient-centered, compassionate, competent and quality health care services.  They must adhere to the General Nursing Council of Zambia’s Code of Conduct and must practice safe, ethical and evidence based midwifery care according to the MBHS standards of care.

EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS

• Must be a  Registered Midwife (; Diploma in Midwifery and Nursing essential)
• Bachelors in Midwifery and Nursing (desirable);
• A current license to practice midwifery in Zambia from the General Nursing Council of Zambia; BLS training is desirable.

KEY ROLE ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Ensure optimal patient care outcomes in the labour and delivery room are achieved.
• Ensure that standard operating policies and procedures are followed in keeping with Zambian midwifery scope of practice and MBHS standard of care.
• Provide nursing and midwifery care that is respectful, ethical and professional at all times.
• Ensure that clinical knowledge is maintained and updated in order to perform all required duties effectively.
• Must be accessible at all times when rostered and available for shift work and/or labour and delivery emergencies.
• Respect and maintain patient dignity and confidentiality at all times and continually strive to deliver a high standard of quality care.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Clinical Services

• Provide advice, care and support for women and their babies during pregnancy, labour and the early postnatal period.
• Diagnose, monitor and examine women during pregnancy and labour and delivery, including continually monitoring and assessing fetal heart rate.
• Ensure all baseline examinations and assessments are completed (i.e. including routine vital signs, urinalysis, abdominal and vaginal assessment and examination, and fetal heart monitoring) and documented according to MBHS standard operating procedure (SOP).
• Responsible for preparing and tidying up a consultation room before or after a medical procedure.
• Provide support and advice for women seeking family planning services, including health education, contraceptive treatment options and on-going counselling.
• Support and/or run the under 5 clinic services (including vaccinations programme) under supervision of a medical doctor.
• Cold chain system is continually monitored, maintained and recorded to ensure proper storage of vaccines. Must be educated on vaccine vial monitor (VVM) quality assurance method.
• Assist the medical doctors during clinical procedures, as requested.
• Responsible for implementing any pre-natal or birthing plans ordered by the medical doctor in collaboration with the patient and their family. This should include the patient’s request for birth technique, pain management, visitor access and any cultural/religious considerations.
• Ensure that all patient consent forms are completed and signed; midwifery assessment, examination and routine monitoring are clearly documented according to the clinic’s policy.
• Provide full pre-natal care, including screening tests (only within scope of practice).
• Monitor and administer medications, injections and IV infusions during labour as ordered.
• Involve the medical doctor or doctor on-call immediately if there are any complications or deviations from the agreed ‘normal’ delivery plan such as fetal distress, severe bleeding, slow or quick progress, wrong presentation, meconium stained liquor present etc.
• Ensure that there is a post-delivery care plan, proper transfer to the post-natal ward and discharge planning protocol in place for all patients.
• Offer support and counselling to women and their families following a miscarriage, termination, stillbirth, neonatal abnormalities and neonatal death.
• Advice and support parents in the daily care of their newborn babies, including breastfeeding, bathing and bottle-feeding.
• Support and educate mothers who are HIV positive in the daily care of their newborn babies.
• Support and educate mothers on malaria prevention and prophylaxis treatment.
• Support and/or mentor an enrolled midwife or student midwife as directed by the Unit Leader.
• Maintain effective patient handover procedures to other clinicians and during shift change.
• Continually demonstrate adherence to the Infection Control Policy, especially maintaining proper hand washing technique (Five moments).
• Use and maintain correct personal protective equipment (PPE) such as eye protection, lab coats and gloves where appropriate.
• Comply with all legal regulations set out by the Zambian Government or GNC.
• Assist with any orders and requests for supplies from pharmacy.
• Any other duties assigned by the Unit Leaders, supervisors or Clinic Manager within the midwifery scope of practice.

Customer Service

• Establish a good rapport with all patients and maintain a good bedside manner at all times.
• Demonstrate good customer service by listening to patient’s concerns and providing proper support and care.
• Report to the Clinic Manager or HR Manager where you see any evidence of poor customer service from other MBHS staff towards patients or other staff (i.e. bullying, yelling etc.).
• Financial, Administration and Reporting .
• Maintain the logbook for the delivery room, vaccination register and birth register. Ensure that all patient demographic information is continually up-to-date.
• Provide any disease profile statistics to the Clinic Manager and/or District Health Board (where appropriate) to ensure continued support of medicines and vaccinations for the ‘under 5’ clinic and family planning service.
• Monitor quality control measures and protocols with support from the Quality Manager.
• Ensure that all MBHS forms for admission, prenatal, labour and delivery, post-natal and family planning are completed in a timely fashion and are legible and signed.
• Ensure that patients are billed accurately for all maternity services, medications and clinical consumables utilised (billing charts completed on time and handed to appropriate person).
• Ensure all incident and adverse event reporting is carried out according to the clinic’s standard operating procedure.

PROFESSIONAL

• Previous experience working as a registered midwife in a medical setting is essential.
• Attend in-house/ external training seminars to maintain up-to-date knowledge and clinical competence.
• Able to demonstrate initiative and a proactive approach to problem solving.
• Demonstrates safety awareness for self and others.
• Demonstrates effective teamwork with other members of the healthcare team. Competent in effective communication skills.
• Computer literate in Microsoft ‘Word’ and Microsoft ‘Excel’.

GENERAL

• Proficient in written and spoken English.
• Able to demonstrate the importance of working as part of a team.
• Always adhere to the MBHS uniform policy and code of conduct and the GNC code of conduct.
• Must be required to travel to other MBHS facilities.
• Must be honest, trustworthy and act with integrity at all times.
• No consumption of alcohol is allowed whilst on duty. Intake of alcohol while off duty is allowed but inebriation is forbidden in public.
• Sleeping whilst on duty is strictly prohibited.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT

• Proficient in managing infection control procedures.
• Upon request, conduct midwifery care self-audits to ensure that the quality of services provided at MBHS is maintained at a high standard.