'Shedding light' on the challenges faced by Palestinian maternal health-care providers.

Objective: to explore the challenges and barriers faced by Palestinian maternal health-care providers (HCPs) to the provision of quality maternal health-care services through a case study of a Palestinian public referral hospital in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Design And Method: descriptive qualitative study. The data are from a broader study, conducted in 2005 at the same hospital as part of a baseline assessment of maternal health services.

Maternal and child health in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The Countdown to 2015 intervention coverage indicators in the occupied Palestinian territory are similar to those of other Arab countries, although there are gaps in continuity and quality of services across the continuum of the perinatal period. Since the mid 1990s, however, access to maternity facilities has become increasingly unpredictable. Mortality rates for infants (age View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Evoking the guardian angel: childbirth care in a Palestinian hospital.

The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of maternity care in a large, public, Palestinian referral hospital, as a first step in developing interventions to improve safety and quality of maternity care. Provider interviews, observation and interviews with women were used to understand the barriers to improved care and prepare providers to be receptive to change. Some of the inappropriate practices identified were forbidding female labour companions, routine use of oxytocin to accelerate labour, restriction of mobility during labour and frequent vaginal examinations.