Striving for excellence: nurturing midwives' skills in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Midwives provide critical, life-saving care to women and babies. Effective midwives must be clinically competent, with the required knowledge, skills, and attitudes to provide quality care. Their success depends on an environment of supportive supervision, continuing education, enabling policies, and access to equipment and referral facilities. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, the Aberdeen Women's Centre launched a maternity unit with an emphasis on striving for excellence and providing ongoing professional development to its staff midwives. Its success was built upon fostering a sense of responsibility and teamwork, providing necessary resources, conforming to evidence-based standards, and building partnerships. An explicit philosophy of care was crucial for guiding clinical decision making. In its first two years of operation, the Aberdeen Women's Centre assisted 2076 births with two maternal deaths and 92 perinatal deaths. In-service education and supportive supervision facilitated the midwives' professional growth, leading to capable future leaders who are providing exemplary care to delivering mothers and their newborns in Freetown.