Timaru educator part of Mongolian midwifery trip

Midwifery and Mongolia go hand in hand for Timaru woman Julie Dockrill.

Mrs Dockrill, who is clinical midwife manager and ante-natal educator for South Canterbury District Health Board, leaves for Mongolia in two weeks to upskill mothers and health professionals on basic maternity care.

She will spend a month travelling throughout various hospitals to help improve maternity systems as part of a Rotary Club of Waimate initiative.

Club president Gary Dennison, who is one of the main instigators of the project, said he was grateful for the support the initiative had received from the health board.

The maternity project has also received financial backing from the Rotary Clubs of Timaru and Timaru North, Rotary District 9980 and Rotary International. Between them they have put about $38,000 into the project.

Each year members of the Waimate club turn their focus to an international project, and this year stumbled across the need for better maternity care in Mongolia, Mr Dennison said. The club's last venture, a drinking water project in the Philippines, was completed in January.

A Rotary Club member's son put the group onto the need for better maternity care in Mongolia.

Now the club has Mrs Dockrill on its side, along with a range of other professionals who will combine their wide range of skills.

Mrs Dockrill, a midwife for 15 years, said the group would provide an ante-natal education programme for Mongolian women because "currently nothing exists like that. [A mother] might have a couple of visits with her GP, then pretty much turns up to the hospital and has her baby.

"The aim of the ante-natal programme would be to give those women a better understanding of what to expect in labour and to also look after themselves ante-natally."

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