However, they were dissatisfied with the long-waiting time to receive services, poor competency of health care providers at health centers and the way they treat the clients.
Key bottlenecks identified across all interventions packages included poor competency of staff, a lack of trained staff overall, especially midwives, specialist nurses (identifying the lack of a neonatal nursing cadre) and doctors.
Acknowledging the persistence of poor competency among obstetric and newborn health care providers, in 2010 the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) in partnership with local and international stakeholders developed standard BEmONC curricula for in service training [ 7].
Because most recruiters have backgrounds in communication or HR, they tend to be poor judges of the competency of engineers and other subject matter experts.
This fact is particularly important in light of the recent reports which showed that up to 91% of maternal deaths in Syria are judged to be preventable, with main contributing factors being poor clinical skills and competency of the health care provider [ 27].
Women also complained of the poor skills and competencies of health providers, whom they considered to be undertrained and offering inaccurate diagnoses.
Arguing that commonly used hiring tests using IQ and personality assessments were poor predictors of competency, McClelland proposed that companies should base hiring decisions on demonstrated competency in relevant fields, rather than on standardized test scores.
Identification of patients incurring notable risk of adverse events due to poor nutritional status is considered not only a core competency of nutrition practitioners, but is also indicated by clinical practice guidelines [ 7, 13, 14].
For example, poor workforce competency limits the application of technologies such as bag and mask ventilation and use of HMIS technologies at district level.
In some studies, the lack of computers and access to them, lagging ICT infrastructural development, cost of training materials, and poor ICT competency skills are identified as significant barriers to technology adoption (Bonsu et al., 2013).
Even though commendable progresses have been made in availing the necessary inputs and personnel, sub-optimal quality BEmONC services continues to prevail in Addis Ababa mainly due to poor providers' competency, which should be a matter of urgent consideration.
