New training for nurses at the Special Care Baby Units enhances survival rates of premature babies

Freetown – She took the tiny baby from its mother’s hands after the later had done with breastfeeding it at the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) in Makeni and carefully placed it in a plastic cot while her colleague was busy fixing gadgets to an oxygen machine to resuscitate life to another baby.

Isatu Kamara is a State Enrolled Community Health Nurse who had been working at the SCBU at the Makeni Government Hospital since 2019 taking care of pre-term babies, and those that need special care and attention due to complications experienced at birth. Though she is a trained and qualified professional nurse, yet she doesn’t necessarily have all the required skills that she should possess to function effectively and efficiently at the SCBU.

“Though I was doing my best at helping to save precious babies’ lives at this SCBU, yet I have realized that there are other fundamental things that I ought to know relating to taking care and treating pre-term babies and those born with sepsis and asphyxia,” said Isatu.

Almost all the nurses working at the 16 SCBU in all the districts in Sierra Leone are not specialized in either pediatric nursing or caring and treating babies with life threatening conditions in the SCBUs. Even locally available doctors who specialize in this area are hard to come by so a few foreign doctors have to be drafted in to support the programme. Despite these challenges, 8 in 10 babies admitted at the SCBUs in the country survive.

UNICEF Sierra Leone, with support from the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) and in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, facilitated a one-year special training for 21 nurses working at four SCBUs in Freetown, Bo, Makeni and Kenema on Post Basic Neonatal Nursing to care and treat these vulnerable babies at the SCBUs through the Saving Lives programme.

Isatu is one of the proud beneficiaries of this training and she is elated about it. Dressed in her graduation regalia and beaming with smiles, she gave warm embraces to her relatives and well-wishers who had gone to congratulate and celebrate with her at the graduation ceremony. 

“I am so happy to have been go through this training successfully and now I have graduated,” she said. “This training will surely improve my knowledge and skills in caring for babies at my SCBU and it will of course, increase babies’ chances of survival.” 

Isatu and her colleagues from the other districts who had graduated from this training are now adopting a changed approach to caring and treating babies at the SCBUs.

“Before the training we were not allowing mothers of these babies to come inside the SCBU wards to check and visit their babies as they lay inside incubators with oxygen machine and other gadgets fixed on them,” she added as she unwrapped a baby to place it inside a plastic cot. “Now we allow them to come inside the SCBU wards not only to visit their babies and see how they are recovering but also to breastmilk and apply kangaroo mothers care to them.”

Kangaroo mothers care is a form of bonding between a mother and her baby where the baby is strapped to its mother’s chest with a piece of cloth to get natural warmth from its mother. 

“This training is a game changer in the fight against neonatal mortality in Sierra Leone and it will definitely increase the survival rates of babies admitted at these SCBUs,” said Dr Edwin Lutomia Mangala, UNICEF Sierra Leone Health Specialist. “With increased funding we hope to cascade the training to all the other nurses working at the different SCBUs in the country.”