Many thanks to Hora Soltani (h.soltani@shu.ac.uk), Professor of Maternal and Infant Health & Cath Burke (c.burke@shu.ac.uk), Senior Lecturer in Midwifery for their story. They visited Lithuania’s Midwifery and Obstetric department in May and November of this year. They discussed the possibility of further collaborations with their hosts including student exchange possibilities and post-graduate opportunities. The next visit from our Lithuanian partners will be organised for Spring-Summer 2018.
Although midwifery is one of the oldest professions in Lithuania like the rest of the world, the midwifery role and training have not been recognized as a separate entity such as that within other Northern European countries until recently.
According to Professor Ruta Nadisauskiene (Head of the Dept. OB/GYN Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LUHS)),” Kaunas City Hospital began nursing and midwifery training in 1920. Training took six months for nurses and nine months for midwives. In the first year 25 midwives were trained. Responsible person was professor Pranas Mažylis, he was one of the most honorable Lithuanian in obstetrics. Also P. Mažylis was very enthusiastic about his duty and expanded studies for midwives to two years. For 90 years midwives were trained in the Kaunas Medical College. There were approximately 30 students graduating the College every year until now. In 2010 the midwifery program was started at the Lithuanian University of health Sciences Nursing faculty. Since 2010 119 graduated the University midwifery program. Currently, there are 54 students (I – 19, II – 14, III – 11, IV – 10).”
Midwifery education is a new programme in Lithuania and considering the well-established midwifery course at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), collaborative working was suggested to be mutually beneficial. During a World Health Organization meeting (which took place in Bangkok Oct 2016), Professor Nadisauskiene (from LUHS) has discussed the start of an Erasmus project with Professor Hora Soltani (HS) from Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) in support of midwifery programme development in their region. Following this, the exchange visits were planned to inspire further progress and development of midwifery prgramme by sharing developments in midwifery research and education considering the well-established Midwifery programme at SHU.
This contract led to the visit of our Midwifery and Nursing staff (Cath Burke (CB) and Kate Johnson in May 2017-attending an Erasmus Conference) as well as our first Erasmus training visit in November 2017 by HS and CB.
Provisional plan suggestions for SHU hosting in 2018 include:
- Tour of Nursing and Midwifery departments and key stakeholders
- Overview of Midwifery programme and a Maternal, Infant & Reproductive Health Research activities -including postgraduate opportunities and PhD students (SHU)
- Virtual tour of simulation facilities within the faculty of HWB (SHU)
- Role of community midwives in the UK (SHU)
- Overview of Midwifery programme in Lithuania (SHU)