Dear Jen,
You have to remember that all new ideas are threatening to a large
majority. As a midwife has this broad based training I wish I didn't. Far
from seeing it as an advantage it is simply an excuse for employers to
abuse my chosen area of work at the expense of the group of clients that
I have chosen to work with. The only way I could train as a midwife was
to do my general training first. Then I chose to do mid and to continue
to work as a midwife. BUT as I have chosen to live outside an area that
has enough births for a full time mid ward they fill the ward up with
ANYTHING because I am trained to look after them. If I wasn't they would
have to look at other ways of utilising my skills to 'their' best
financial gain by expanding the role of the midwife. In a general ward it
is always the mid women who miss out because they are not sick (dependent
physically). Now before all the idealists jump in I agree OK that the
women would be better off with a completely differnt system but maybe
this will force 'them' to look at it not today because they can still get
general trained midwives but as midwives train as direct entry the
shortages will force the establishments to employ them.
The first ones though had better be prepared to be in it for the long
haul as employment opportunities may be limited for a while. Although
there are already rural areas that say they can't get enough midwives so
if they are prepared to live in the country ( and its a great life ) they
may be OK.
Graduate programmes are another area that you will need to look at. As a
midwife in a rural setting (I can't tell you where in case big brother is
watching) we currently have mid students and they get great experience
with us because they are supernumary(?) but we are unable to take them as
grads because we only have two on each shift. If they are allocated to a
labouring woman there will not always be someone to assist them as much
as they may need in the begining as the other sucker is caring for the
ward full of medical/surgical/paediatric patients. For grads who have
already been in unpaid education for three years to have to take an
unpaid grad year is asking alot but that is what they may have to
consider. Especially the first few years unless you can find some
sympathetic employers.
As for the ANF it belongs to the members and all those midwives who are
members may like to have a say about this issue. The union was not happy
about PCAs when they were first introduced but they can now become
members of the ANF. So don't be discouraged by the fact that they, as
representatives of all those nurses who don't see midwifery as a
seperate entity from nursing, aren't celebrating the introduction of
direct entity. (You know those bloody midwives have always been up
themselves sort of thing that nurses have been saying about midwives as
long as I've been a midwife)
I think this is an important move for midwifery and would like to see you
go ahead with it,
Andrea Quanchi
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