In her quest to improve healthcare delivery in Ghana, a Midwife at St. Mary’s Anglican Clinic at Apinkra in the Bosomtwe District of the Ashanti Region has invented a travelling basket and an improvised incubator.
The emergency basket became the first runners up in the Ashanti Region’s version of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives (GRNA) awards.
Whiles the emergency travelling basket aims to facilitate safe referring of babies, the improvised incubator seeks to provide a safe space for babies who need to be incubated.
In an interview with Margaret Ako Tsakle, who invented these two items, told The Chronicle that postnatal challenges at her workplace encouraged her to invent the travelling basket and an improvised incubator.
According to her, the facility is not big and they were in a remote area, so they do not perform activities such as blood transfusion and theatre surgery.
Ako Tsakle continued that, during referral of cases, the nurses have no option than to carry babies in their bid to save their lives.
“Midwives are seen carrying babies together with other items, but with this travelling basket, the baby lies in comfortably, and it can contain oxygen and other items needed by the baby.”
She stated that en-route to a referral facility the baby may need oxygen and medication which can be put in the basket, adding that the emergency travelling basket would help nurses working in smaller facilities.
“If the emergency basket is used to refer babies, it could curb instances of mortalities associated with babies who had been referred since it comes along with oxygen and other medical interventions. It could save nurses from query, following the death of the baby. I would plead that we embrace it to facilitate healthcare delivery in Ghana and beyond,” she stated.
Referring of babies, according to her, was characterised with bad breath and blueish palms.
Asked about challenges encountered by the Clinic, the Midwife noted that they had a lot of them, but what was pressing was lack of a scanning machine at the maternity unit, adding that since they did not have one, pregnancy women who visit are gathered for a scanning machine operator to come and take their scans, a development she bemoaned.
Margaret Ako Tsakle also appealed to benevolent institutions for a suction machine for her workplace to help the midwives.
According to her, since they did not have one, they had to take the baby to a larger facility where an operational suction machine could be found.
