Parpopakar Maternity and Women's Hospital

Today we went for a tour at Parpopakar Maternity and Women's Hospital (Thapathali Maternity Hospital) in Kathmandu. It is the only public national referral hospital in Nepal. The hospital was severely damaged in the earthquake and the matrons were quick to point out that the wards they were showing us are only temporary until the new hospital building is finished. Funding for the new hospital campus has come from jhpiego.

In our new Kurti uniforms in front of Patan Dokha near our hotel. 

We did not take any pictures in the hospital, as we wanted to respect the women's privacy.

We had tea with the matrons and read the hospital report from 2016.  Then they took us to see the midwife-led birth centre. They have worked hard to implement protecting birthing women's privacy by hanging curtains around the cubicles in which the women give birth. There are 4 cubicles in the room. The midwives also work to encourage the husbands to accompany their wives and to provide comfort measures. If the husband cannot or does not want to be there then the woman can bring her mother, mother-in-law, or another companion.

We had the opportunity to see their record book where they enter all of the information about each women birthing that day. It was interesting to see that the average newborn weight was about 2800g. Their PPH rate is also very low because each woman is given 10 IU of oxytocin when the baby is born. Unlike in Canada, episiotomies are performed on most of the women. We briefly discussed avoiding episiotomy by promoting slow delivery of the head but it takes a long time for practice standards to change as we well know.

We also went to the nurse-led birthing unit. A woman had just delivered twins vaginally. The baby girls weighed 2400g and 2700g. All three were well. We were introduced to some nursing students who were 15-17 years old.

We continued on to the post-natal ward for post-cesarean recovery. The women stay in the ward for 4-5 days. There were 20 beds in each ward room. There is no separation between beds so little privacy. What we noticed was that  the women were from many different ethnic groups, due to this being a public referral centre. The rooms were very colourful as the women bring their own blankets for their stay.

We stopped briefly at the antenatal clinic and were introduced to some midwifery students but we chose not to observe as we wanted to respect the privacy of the women as well as the students.

Our overall impression was that the wards were clean and well organized. The midwives and nurses were very keen to show us their equipment and set up. They do a lot with much less than we are used to in BC hospitals.