Embedded Files
intensive care, Nursing care, Parent experience, Developing countries * Correspondence: Katie.gallagher@ucl.ac.uk 1 Institute for Women’s Health, University College London, 74 Huntley Street, London WC1E 6AU, UK Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Gallagher et al. BMC Pediatrics (2017) 17:161 DOI 10.1186/s12887-017-0909-6 Background In Vietnam significant progress has been made towards the achievement of reducing the under 5 mortality rate in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG 4) and the subsequent Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 3), both seeking to eradicate health inequalities and strengthen country progression though social, economical and environmental targets [1, 2]. Despite being ranked as a ‘poor’ country by the Human Development Index (116/188) [3], Vietnam’s health indicators are better than expected for a country with low income per capita [2]. Since 1990, the under 5 mortality rate in Vietnam has declined from 58 per 1000 live births to 24 per 1000 [4]. In contrast, however, neonatal mortality has decreased slowly throughout this time and still accounts for nearly three-quarters of all infant deaths [5], with large variation seen between different districts within the same province [6]. Given that infant mortality remains a significant public health issue in Vietnam, newborn care has undergone rapid expansion during the past decade [4]. All provincial hospitals now have neonatal units, although with varying resources [7]. To achieve further progress in this area, however, the knowledge, skills and systems of the neonatal workforce need to be understood, as translation and implementation of appropriate knowledge into practice remains a global health problem [6]. This is particularly significant in low and middle income settings where there is little evidence to support the notion that practices which work well in one country will work well in another [8]. Empowering the local health care workforce through knowledge and skills training is essential to ensure relevance and feasibility of the training process. In neonatal care, the nursing team play a major role in the delivery of care, constituting the largest professional group amongst the health care workforce working with newborns [9]. Nursing staff have the greatest contact with patients and their families, therefore having the greatest potential for preventative education to reduce infant mortality [9]. Nursing in Vietnam has made many advances in the past decade, including a growing recognition of an expanded nursing role following a name change from ‘Implementer of Doctors Order’ (‘Y tá’) to ‘nurse’ (‘diệu dương’) [10]. There remain significant issues however, despite the development of a national examination following graduation [9], as there are shortages of qualified faculty, a lack of teaching resources and no standardised nursing procedures [11]. There is a lack of research into the impact of nursing provision and education in Vietnam in all areas, but in particular in neonatal nursing where staff are often sent from other specialities within the hospital and receive no specific neonatal training. Without specialist knowledge in newborn care, further reductions in neonatal mortality have been hard to achieve. To address this, funding was successfully sought in 2013 to implement a structured neonatal nursing programme over an 18 month period in one pilot hospital in Vietnam. The programme, led and coordinated by Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU), was implemented on a bi-monthly basis with experienced neonatal nurse lecturers from the UK teaching classes covering aspects of neonatal care such as thermoregulation,
Report abuse