Midwife
Caption Christine, a Kenyan midwife leads the maternity services in MSF primary health centres in Jamtoli and Hakimpara, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. © Anthony Kwan/MSF
As a midwife with MSF your experience in both complicated and normal deliveries will be essential.
From visiting expectant mums deep in the jungle to training birth attendants in busy maternity departments in big hospital settings, our midwives are a vital part of most project teams.
Responsibilities
As a Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) midwife you'll work in both health centres and conduct outreach work in the community.
No matter what the context - natural disasters, conflicts or poverty-affected communities - babies will continue to be born and midwives will always be needed.
It's a challenging and rewarding role and you'll be responsible for some or all of the following:
1. Pre- and post-delivery care
2. Deliveries, often complicated
3. Care of survivors of sexual violence
4. Setting up maternity departments in new health centres/hospitals
5. Working with community birth attendants to ensure safe community birthing practices
6. Running awareness programs in the community
7. Training local midwives
8. On-call care, often 24 hours
As a midwife with MSF, your experience in both complicated and normal deliveries will be essential.
You could be involved in setting up a mother-child health department in a rural clinic, providing reproductive health care from mobile clinics or treating patients in an urban hospital.
Your training skills will be crucial because you may be assigned to help traditional birth attendants develop new skills.
At the same time, you will need to learn from the women you treat to understand cross-cultural issues surrounding childbirth.
The tiny cramped compound is always buzzing with children's cries and laughter. There, we treat and fix almost anything and everything. Malaria (mostly), flu, broken bones, cuts, pneumonia... you name it!
ALICE GAUTREAU | Midwife Tweet this
Application guide
Read our guide on the application process for all overseas roles
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Role requirements
9. Valid Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) or Irish Nursing Board registration
10. Two year's post-qualification experience
11. Experience in supervising, managing and training others
12. Experience of obstetric emergencies/complicated deliveries, termination of pregnancy, sexual violence
13. Willingness to be regularly on call for difficult and complicated deliveries
14. low/middle income countries
15. Willingness to work in unstable areas
16. Adaptable and able to work in a multi-cultural team
17. Flexible and able to manage stress
18. Available for nine to twelve months
Please note that in order to work with MSF as a midwife, it is not necessary to also be qualified as a nurse.
Assets
19. Tropical nursing diploma
20. Knowledge of STDs/HIV/AIDS
21. Family planning experience
22. Community midwifery experience