The 5th International and 9th National Midwifery Students’ Congress
‘Midwifery Support in Every Step’, Amasya, Turkey (3-5 May, 2018)
The International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) South Europe region representative, Dr Rita Borg Xuereb presented the keynote speech entitled ‘The Status of Midwifery around the South European Region’.
The speech focused on the present European situation concerning women’s, neonatal and children’s health in the global context. She referred to the Sustainable Developmental Goals, and the High-level Commission’s report on Health Employment and Economic Growth. Six of the ten recommendations focused on what needs to be changed in health, employment, health education and health services delivery to augment profits on investments in a five-year action plan (2016-2021).
The key messages centred on the need to scale up transformative high–quality education and lifelong learning, so that midwifery skills match the health needs of childbearing women and that midwives should practice all the competencies that they have learnt during their midwifery education. She further illustrated how these priorities are directly applicable to midwifery within the South European region and how ICM Essential Competencies and ICM Global Standards of Midwifery Education guides the preparation of competent midwives in the provision of high-quality evidence-based health services for women, neonates, children and families.
Increased collaboration between universities, hospitals and other areas of clinical practice for midwifery students could contribute to better midwifery educational contexts, and consolidate maternal, neonatal and children’s health in the global context.