midwife's muse

Non-negotiable

Today was the meeting with the Head of Midwifery to discuss 'options for rotation', misleading topic really because there were no 'options' as she started off the meeting with ' You are being moved to *****, and it's non-negotiable'. Job-share partner and I greeted this with a stunned silence, even our line manager looked rather taken aback. We pointed out HOM that this move was totally to our disadvantage, it would double our travelling time, much of which would be spent in heavy traffic and this move was solely for the benefit of a midwife whose husbands job was moving, so she would get her needs fulfilled whilst ours would be totally ignored. No avail, she was firm in her decision, non-negotiable. We came out of there shocked and saddened. As community midwives you build up relationships, with the women, the G.P's and other professionals. We have been covering our area for 7 years now, we are well known, we are caring now for women through their third pregnancy with us as their midwives, it is really sad to be saying goodbye, particularly when we don't want to leave them. Apparently the change will happen in a month, I feel like I am on a roller-coaster and there is nothing I can do about it.

Must be a day for announcements, seems that the maternity services on a grand scale are due for some major changes. As a midwife these can be viewed both positively and negatively. The positive is that they could encourage healthy women to view pregnancy and birth more as a natural process and less a medical episode, but the negatives are numerous. It is going to involve staff either having to follow the unit, which may involve them in commuting many more miles to work, or they will leave which will cause the units which are ear-marked for closure to become short-staffed as people leave to work at a unit which suits them better. These changes are going to cost huge amounts of money, where is this going to come from, there is no money 'in the pot' as it is, everywhere is experiencing cut-backs and reducing the services they offer, how is this extra money going to magically appear? For the users of the service it is going to involve longer journeys to the maternity units, bad enough if it is for consultant appointments but if they are in labour it could be problematic. Supposing they have other children and have to stay in hospital for some reason, access will be more difficult, childcare issues may be problematic, and what if they don't drive, a taxi 2 miles is one cost, a taxi to travel 20 miles is an entirely different matter. I foresee many more 'save our unit' protests.

This is all going round in money wasting circles anyway. We used to have G.P units, they were closed. A few years ago stand-alone birth units sprang up, over the last couple of years though they have all been closing due to staffing issues (not wanting to spend the money on the staff). So there they were, all these midwifery-led units, fitted out for the purpose, and now they have been swallowed up by other services. So now they are going re-open, be re-fitted, re-staffed by staff who will need extra training to work in a midwifery-led environment, how much will that cost? Who is planning all this? Is it the consumer? Is it the midwives? No, it's faceless bureaucrats, here today, gone tomorrow, wasting our money but then making sure their salaries are being paid by cut-backs in services. 

6.2.07 17:10