February 18, 2022 - A recent research seeking to determine the quality of the childbirth experience during the pandemic in several European countries has exposed maternity hospitals in Croatia, and for all the wrong reasons.
The prestigious journal The Lancet Regional Health Europe published this month a scientific paper entitled Quality of health care for mothers and newborns in maternity hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic: an online survey of mothers' perspectives in 12 WHO countries.
The fact that the research was featured on the cover of this scientific journal speaks of its importance on the experience of health care for pregnant women, mothers, and midwives during the pandemic, as well as the quality of investigation and conclusions.
The study included a total of 21,027 women who gave birth in the first year of the pandemic, from March 1, 2020 to March 15, 2021 in twelve countries of the WHO European Region.
The online questionnaire is based on the WHO Standards for Quality of Maternal and Neonatal Care (QMNC) and is organized in four areas: Care Provision, Care Experience, Availability of Staff and Human Resources, and the Impact of COVID- 19 on the provision of care. Based on the results in each area, an overall ranking of responses for that area (0-100) and an overall score (0-400) was formed.
The results indicate huge differences in the quality of care for women and newborns. Unfortunately, Croatia is in the penultimate place on the list of 12 countries. At the top of the scale are Luxembourg (355), Spain (345) and Germany (335) and at the bottom are Romania (275), Croatia (270) and Serbia (205).
Maternity hospitals in Croatia were rated best in the areas of care (80 out of a possible 100) and in the assessment of changes related to COVID (70 out of a possible 100), while the experience in care (65 out of a possible 100) and the availability of staff and human resources were rated worse (55 out of 100), reports Novi list.
In collaboration with the leaders of the scientific project Imagine EURO, Trieste Burlo Garofolo Institute, the project was worked on in Croatia by the head of the Reproductive Rights Program at the Roda Association, Daniela Drandić, M.Sc.
"This research once again pointed out all the problems in health care for pregnant women, mothers, and midwives, which Roda has been warning the competent institutions and the public about since the beginning of the pandemic. The only question is whether the competent institutions will direct their efforts towards solving these problems", warned the Roda Association.
"Once again, we have seen that, despite the constant talk about demography, when it comes to changes in the health care system, women and children are simply not a priority.", they added.
Several more scientific studies will be published as part of this research project, including work measuring the experiences of health professionals in the pandemic. "Over 3,000 health professionals from Europe have already participated in the research on the experiences of health professionals in maternity hospitals during the pandemic, and we call on those from maternity hospitals in Croatia to do the same; the survey questionnaire is open to all health professionals working in maternity hospitals.
In addition, we continue to invite women who gave birth in the hospital during the pandemic to participate in the research that is still ongoing; namely, we want to investigate the experiences of women throughout the pandemic''.
Source: Slobodna Dalmacija
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