Accountability as a Midwife - Essay Example

Accountability as a Midwife Introduction A midwife can be described as a professional who gets entrusted with the duties of ensuring that an expectant woman delivers safely with minimum health risks. A midwife should be in a position to clearly distinguish the accountability they have to each of the parties that look up to them. These people include women and their families, their employers, the NMC and work within a legal framework. This paper will discuss the role of a midwife in relation to undertaking care to women in labor. This paper will further relate its discussion to the NMC 2008 code and standards. Undertaking Care for Women in Labor The NMC code is a set of principles that seeks to underpin the practice of all nurses and midwives. The code is vital to safeguarding the health of the public. The code stipulates that, for a health care professional to be able to provide quality healthcare, the people in their care must be able to trust them with their health and wellbeing (Hart 2010, p.116). In the context of a midwife, the midwife should manage to have the trust of the woman she is taking care of in their operations. In order to do this, a midwife should make the care of an expectant woman their first priority and treat them with as individuals respecting their dignity. A midwife should also work with other stakeholders to protect and promote the health of a woman that they are taking care of so as to completely win the trust of their client. This includes involving the community in their practices. A midwife should further ensure that they provide quality healthcare at all times. Integrity and honesty in their work can also help to win the trust of their clients (Jasper et al 2013, pp.100). These initiatives, when carried out in a professional manner, should help win the trust of expectant women to their midwives. A midwife should further be accountable for all the activities they undertake. They should justify their decisions and personally be accountable for any omissions they make in their duties (Macdonald et al 2011, p.325). This further helps win the trust of expectant women that the qualification of the midwife in charge of them is beyond any doubt. When the midwife is accountable, he or she gets to interact with the expectant woman at a more advanced level. The woman gets to trust her life and that of her child on the midwife. She will, therefore, provide the inner details about her healthcare background. This improves the overall quality of healthcare services that the midwife gets to provide to such a woman (Spouse et al 2007, p.122). A midwife should act lawfully at all times. Everything they undertake should be within the law. This includes even in very critical situations where the midwife may feel that doing otherwise would be more accurate than doing what gets stipulated in the law. A midwife should understand that failure to comply with the law constitutes to a criminal offence which can be charged in a court of law. This failure can endanger their registration (Stacey et al 2012, p.44). These rules and regulations include all those codes established in the nursing field that seek to ensure that efficiency and quality are prevalent in midwifery. A midwife should treat all the information provided to him or her by an expectant mother with utmost confidentiality. A midwife should explain to the woman why they require any information that they ask from them. This information should not at any time be released to a third party, unless it is for a medical reason. Even in such a case, the information should be released with the consent of the woman. A midwife should further be an advocate of the woman they are taking care of (Griffith & Tengnaph 2010, p.14). They should seek to defend their rights while they are still in their care. It is worth noting that child delivery gets associated with psychological changes in a woman. In order to deal with such a situation, a midwife should provide the moral support to a woman in order to make them feel that everything is under the control of professionals. Working as a teamwork can improve the overall quality of midwifery services provided to a woman in labor. Midwives should, therefore, work as a team, each one of them involving their colleagues to ensure that the standards of services required can be met. A midwife should recognize and respect the contribution of other healthcare professionals. Communication is vital for this objective to be met (Debnath 2009, p.458). This ensures that the inner details of any medical operation that gets undertaken get addressed. Consequently, human errors get minimized and the qualities of services get raised. A midwife should further gain consent. This should be before they begin their work. Gaining consent entails thorough understanding of the environment that they will be working (Beckwith & Franklin 2011, p.124). This includes all the legislation related to the profession and the client’s expectations. A midwife should put all these factors into consideration and establish the best way to address them. A midwife should also have boundaries in his or her work. These boundaries dictate the level of interaction that they should have with their clients. Any gifts or presents from an expectant woman with an aim to receive preferential treatment must be declined (Stallcup 2008, p.133). Clear sexual boundaries should be maintained between a midwife and a woman in labor. Their interaction should be strictly from a professional point of view. A midwife should also ensure that their skills are up to date and that they are able to deal with emerging issues in the field (Bach & Grant 2011, p.28). They should further keep accurate records of the expectant women they attend to in their services. Conclusion Midwifery as a profession has various codes that guide how operations get carried out. The NMC code stipulates the various guidelines that should be followed by midwives and nurses in their work. These guidelines play a vital role in ensuring that there is accountability in these professions. There is need, therefore, to ensure that this code gets followed and that midwives use it as a guideline in their operations. If this gets accomplished, the quality of midwifery services could be raised by a significant level. References List Bach, S., & Grant, A. (2011). Communication & interpersonal skills in nursing, Exeter [England], Learning Matters. pp.27-29 Beckwith, S., & Franklin, P. (2011). Oxford handbook of prescribing for nurses and allied health professionals, Oxford, Oxford University Press. pp.123-125 Debnath, R. (2009). Professional Skills in Nursing a Guide for the Common Foundation Programme, London, Sage Publications. pp.456-458 Griffith, R., & Tengnah, C. (2010). Law and professional issues in nursing, Exeter, Learning Matters. pp.12-15 Hart, S. (2010). Nursing: study and placement learning skills, Oxford, Oxford University Press. pp.115-117 Jasper, M., Rosser, M., Mooney, G. P., & Jasper, M. (2013). Professional development, reflection and decision-making in nursing and healthcare, Chichester, West Sussex, Wiley-Blackwell. pp.99-101 Macdonald, S., Magill-Cuerden, J., & Mayes, M. (2011). Mayes midwifery a textbook for midwives, Edinburgh [etc.], Baillière Tindall. pp.324-325 Spouse, J., Cox, C. L., & Cook, M. J. (2007). Common foundation studies in nursing, Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier. pp.121-123 Stacey, G., Felton, A., & Bonham, P. (2012). Placement learning in mental health nursing: a guide for students in practice, Edinburgh, Bailliere Tindall/Elsevier. pp.43-45 Stallcup, J. G. (2008). Stallcups illustrated code changes, Sudbury, Mass, Jones and Bartlett Publishers. pp.132-135 Read More