Hello and welcome to my crowd funding page. My name is Susan and I am currently in my second year of midwifery studies at the University of Bradford. Myself and five other midwifery students are planning to travel to Ghana in July to complete a two-week elective midwifery placement in Takoradi.

The placement has been organised using a reputable, safe and reliable organisation called Work the World. They have arranged my accommodation, placement and airport transfers. Work the World organise healthcare elective placements around the world tailored to individual interests and have over a decade of experience. To feed back into the country’s economies they employ local people to run their programme’s and purchase food and products from the local communities in which they’re based.

This placement has been organised to take place during my transitional period of becoming a registered midwife. The transitional period is an essential part of pre-registration into midwifery as it enables students to plan additional activities that will benefit their future learning and practice. Completing a two-week elective placement in Ghana is an exciting opportunity to observe midwifery within a contrasting culture to the UK.

During this placement I will work Monday to Friday with Takoradi’s local maternity services, providing antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care to local women.

Maternity care in Ghana is not as well-funded or advanced as the care we have in the UK. Many women in Ghana are unable to access antenatal care which can often be detrimental to both theirs and their unborn child’s health. In 2017, the maternal mortality rate in Ghana was approximately 319 per 100,000 women who gave birth. 65% of maternal deaths in Ghana can be attributed to postpartum haemorrhages, hypertensive disorders and sepsis. Most deaths to these conditions can be preventable with the correct maternity care and resources. In the UK, these conditions are well managed and maternal mortality is rare. The neonate mortality rate in Ghana is 29 per 1,000 births. These figures are comparatively higher than in the UK and demonstrate the challenges that the health services within Ghana face.

In the UK maternity resources and care can be taken for granted. While in Ghana I hope to gain a good insight of how maternity care is provided using limited resources. This will develop my knowledge and understanding of maternity care so that I can improve all aspects of my future practice so that I can be a better midwife for all the women I care for.

I do not expect Western midwifery ideals to exist with the same weighting in Ghana. Empowering women occurs in the context of the culture they live and is different to the United Kingdom’s cultural expectations of empowerment. I hope to return from Ghana with a broader, more open-minded and respectful understanding of women’s differing needs.

Although the university encourage students to go on elective placements abroad to enrich their learning, they provide minimal financial support. This opportunity must be funded by myself, so I have set up this crowd funding page to help raise the funds I need to meet the costs of the placement fees. This includes accommodation, flights and immunisations needed to enter Ghana. Extra funds that I raise out with these costs will be donated to the local maternity services in Ghana. Any personal activities that I choose to participate in while visiting Ghana will be paid for using my own personal funds.

I am extremely excited to be embarking on this once in a life time opportunity and will be writing a daily blog to share my experiences in Ghana with everyone.

Thankyou for taking the time to read my page.

Love Susan x