Community members' view on banning of traditional birth attendants from conducting deliveries in rural areas of Ntcheu District

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2017-03-01
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A Qualitative study was conducted to explore the views of the community members in Traditional Authorities, Masasa and Phambala in Ntcheu district on the banning of TBAs from conducting deliveries. The study objectives were to assess knowledge of community members on the availability and accessibility of maternal and neonatal care services; to assess perceived roles of TBAs before and after being banned from conducting deliveries; to describe community members perceptions about banning of TBAs and; to describe opinions of community members regarding accessibility and utilization of maternal and neonatal care services. Purposive sampling was used to select both the study areas and the study participants. Group Village Headman Mwenye and Masese were chosen from TAs Masasa and Phambala respectively. These were some of the areas with difficult accessibility to health facilities. Fourteen in-depth interviews from five women, five men and four chiefs were conducted and this was the point at which saturation was reached. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse the data and six key themes emerged, namely: access to maternal and neonatal health services; dangers of home delivery; experiences of giving birth at a TBA versus health facility; participants’ perceived trend of maternal and neonatal mortality; need for consultation with stakeholders; and health Worker- TBA Partnership. The study findings revealed that the community members welcomed the idea of banning TBA from conducting deliveries. However, the community members view implementation of the policy to be difficult because of prevalent factors affecting accessibility and utilization of safe delivery services. It is recommended that safe delivery services be made closer to them by constructing health facilities; deploying and retaining staff in non-functional health facilities; improving health worker attitude towards women of child bearing age and; community awareness on maternal and neonatal health issues.
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