It’s 1996 and I’m now a Sister on Delivery Suite at Heartlands and I absolutely loved it
I worked with the most amazing team of midwives and support workers for the next few years and it was absolutely fantastic. I’m not going to lie and say it was an easy time as it was extremely hard …….staffing levels weren’t great (we were always short)…… but the staff were fabulous and that was what made the difference. Everybody did lots of extra shifts and we really supported each other.
Sadly there was also some bullying within the mix and of course that is always hard to deal with, but you get through it at the end of the day and it does make you stronger
We cared for a really diverse mix of women who all birthed really well, and at one point we had an epidural rate of 8 percent which was amazing for a large Delivery Suite.
This was mainly down to one of the older senior midwives really pushing us younger midwives to help moms to have natural births.
I remember she would come into your room and take your lady off the monitor / slide the bed to the side of the room and bring in the “Birthing Stool” which worked wonders lol
She always used to tell us to put on our “big girl pants” and put our “shoulders back and boobs out” when we were challenging doctors …..it worked though
I loved the variety of Delivery Suite including scrubbing for Caesarians, both elective and emergencies …..as well as caring for moms with more complicated needs, although the “high dependency” rooms were never my forte.
Unfortunately we had a lot of sad cases too, including babies with abnormalities who weren’t compatible with life, but who were born at full term due to religious beliefs and we cared compassionately for these ladies too. I saw many things that you wouldn’t see now which was really difficult but also really rewarding ….., we just wanted to support all our moms with the best care we could give them.
I loved my time on Delivery Suite so much that I never went back to Community and I look back on this time with fondness ….and to this day always say that Heartlands is my favourite hospital.
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