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Description
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about restrictions that ''took away'' the voice of many women on labour wards. A 2021 report by the Foundation for Childbirth with Dignity shows that during the pandemic: 62% of women gave birth without a relative, 14.4% of women in labour had to give birth in a mask and 52% of women had no ''skin-to-skin'' contact with their baby. As part of the project, we remind women that they have a voice in childbirth and in the hospital. We teach them how and when they should use this voice so that it is heard. We convince them to use their voice for the benefit of other pregnant women. We deliver 30 educational webinars to a total of 750 women on legal issues and on how to enforce the law on labour wards. We organise 30 meetings with midwives for 750 women. We offer 80 hours of individual legal counselling for 40 women. We conduct trainings for 15 our foundation’s allies as well as watchdog interventions in hospitals in the Greater Poland Province. We are implementing a public awareness campaign and preparing educational materials: including articles and leaflets, which are translated into Russian and Ukrainian. The direct beneficiaries of the project are pregnant women who plan to give birth in the Greater Poland Province, as well as our foundation’s allies, female residents of Greater Poland, who want to support our activities in the counties. As a result, more than 1,500 women, residents of the Greater Poland Province, will receive tools and knowledge about their rights in childbirth and will strengthen their sense of empowerment and influence over lives of other women expecting a child. The project is implemented by the Matecznik Foundation from 1 September 2022 to 30 April 2024.
Summary of project results
With this project, we wanted to respond to the need to increase women''s civic activity in exercising their rights in childbirth, in connection with the restrictions on the application of patient rights caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The restrictions on patient rights that the pandemic "brought" showed how much depends on women who are aware of their rights, assertive, who are not afraid of confrontation with medical personnel and understand that exercising their rights serves the common good of all women giving birth.
Through this project : - we reminded women that they have a voice in childbirth and in the hospital, - we taught them how and when they should use their voice to be heard, - we convinced women to use their voice for the good of other pregnant women. We did this through: - 30 educational webinars on rights in perinatal care, attended by 1,140 participants - 30 meetings with midwives from Greater Poland maternity wards for 1,438 people - 80 hours of legal advice, which supported 51 women - training for 12 allies - whistleblowers, our "eyes and ears" in the field - 6 watchdog interventions in Greater Poland hospitals - the social campaign "We Have a Voice, We Have an Impact", in which we encouraged women to file complaints in the event of violations of their rights in childbirth, which reached over 18,000 people. recipients - educational materials – 12 thousand leaflets about rights, distributed among family midwives and other specialists from Wielkopolska and thematic articles.
2671 women, residents of Wielkopolska, recipients of project activities, received tools and knowledge about their rights in childbirth and strengthened their sense of agency and influence on the fate of other women expecting a child.