BELFAST: Anila Ali Bardai of the Aga Khan University Hospital received the award for excellence in neonatal nursing at the opening ceremony of the 8th International Conference of the Neonatal Nurses held at the Waterfront Hotel in Belfast‚ Ireland‚ said a communication received here on Monday.
Baradi‚ the first Pakistani nurse to win this coveted award has shared the honor with Nurse Christine Sammy from Kenya while nurse Netasyi Gowero from Malawi was runner up.
The Northern Ireland Health Minister Edwin Poots joined nurses from around the world in honoring the three neonatal nurses for their commitment to saving mothers and newborns during childbirth in some of the hardest places to work around the world.
The award‚ organised by Save the Children and the Council of International Neonatal Nurses (COINN)‚ was established in 2009. It was created to highlight the fact that skilled nursing care is critical to the reduction of the global neonatal death toll. These are mostly preventable with care which skilled nurses or midwives can provide.
Meeting the global Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 for child survival will be increasingly determined by how well countries can reduce newborn deaths‚ as now more than 43 per cent of under-five deaths globally occur in the first month of life.
Previous winners were from Ghana and India.”Christine‚ Anila and Netsayi were selected over a number of outstanding candidates for their unwavering leadership and passion for ensuring every newborn has a chance to survive and thrive‚” said COINN
President Karen New. All three women work in newborn care units in busy referral hospitals providing care to underserved populations.
While good care is taken for granted in rich countries but in settings peculiar to little resourced countries it has to be developed and defended by committed professionals.
