Is it only a dream?
Agnes Kanyanya,Kim Briehl
Prosami, USA
: J Womens Health, Issues Care
Abstract
Is it only a dream to provide accessible, affordable, high quality Health Care to women of childbearing age in a country fraught by Civil War and ongoing human rights violations? This has been the goal of PROSAMI the past 10 years, with a concerted effort to train Advanced nurse midwives and to establish a clinic for their services and continuing education. To date, 19 Congolese nurses have received cutting edge, maternal infant Health Care education and are on the home stretch for licensure. In timing which seems providential, a clinic environment has been procured, and a long-awaited Pilot Center is being equipped and ready for opening. This will enable the advanced practice nurse midwives to deliver consistent, high quality Health Care during childbirth and the first year of the infant's life. It will also be a site for continued Education and Training for advanced nurse midwives. A brief overview of the journey includes the initial training of 4 nurses in the US in an intensive course, their return to the DRC where they each mentored four additional nurses in a Cascade training model facilitated through telemedicine, and clinical hours and on-site skills testing in local hospitals rounding out their certification. Questions for discussion: How is PROSAMI different from other large philanthropic organizations such as the Red Cross, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders? Why is the Cascade training model so important? What are some of the obstacles encountered by Congolese nurses and PROSAMI members as the program advanced? Why is it important to tell stories about our successes? Why were the international conferences important? Can the PROSAMI model be replicated in other areas of the world? How can our organization show respect for the Congolese public health system and the local government? How can PROSAMI best record our patient interventions and publish our data along with success stories? If we could wind back the clock 9 years, would we have approached the prosami initiatives any differently, in terms of priority and timing? Kim Briehl is an RN with experience in Pediatrics, Neurosurgery, and long term care Nursing. She currently works at Mountain View Nursing Home in Virginia.
Biography
Agnes Kanyanya is an RN with experience in Neonatal nursing, maternal nursing, nurse midwifery, pediatric intensive care unit nursing and Adult mental health. She grew up in the Congo, losing her mother and left with a one day old orphaned sister when she was 17 years old. Her dream has been the formation and launching of a self-sustaining model where advanced practice nurse midwives lead the prenatal, peripartum, and post-partum care of mothers and their babies in a rural area of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
E-mail: agnes_kanyanya@yahoo.com
