Pillar 3 - Gloria

Pillar 3 - Gloria - TRANSCRIPTION

SUMMARY KEYWORDS midwives, midwife, ladies, midwifery, baby, community, practising, write, home, visited, care, diaries, give, organisation, behaviour, working, woman, day, scared, realise

My name is Gloria Hanley and I was a community midwife, based in Leeds 17, 8,9, and 7d for 30 years before I retired- a job that I loved dearly and its had its ups and downs but I have no regrets about being a community Midwife. We could work working in areas as I mentioned earlier, and so that will be our community, our people, my ladies, so that was my community. I'm also a community to worker- in that I interact with various people in different communities, different cultures, different religious people. And also, I serve on various organisations, volunteer organisational boards like police racial harassment. Nurse Association, the churches, West Yorkshire Ecumenical Councils so you can split me in many parts. As a community midwife when a woman is pregnant, from a positive pregnancy test, and she sees her doctor, she is immediately assigned a midwife. And that midwife, probably not so much so today but in the ages, that midwife follows this lady right through her pregnancy until she has given birth, sometimes at home, most times in hospital and care postnatally right to protect the babies about a month. I did not refer to any of them as patients because they weren't sick. So the become your friend, you know them and you know, the whole family and you interact with them. They most of them didn't call me midwife - They call me Gloria, you know, and I treat it as though they were part of me. So every baby that I take care of and for every mom that I cared for, to become became a friend, and the baby would be effectively mine. So I'm one of y'all one of the things I am an African Caribbean woman, a black woman and I was working in the community. In the 80s when racism was high on the agenda, and so at some homes, I was refused entrance to the homes. Most times out of sheer ignorance until I explained to hem for the need of a midwife. You know. So that that was the downside. Sometimes I felt threatened because of some of the partners behavior, not only threatened and scared but it didn’t stop me. I used to put on a brave face and defuse incidents. Especially racial incidents with a sense of humour. And it worked for me. There was never a day that I didn't want to go to work because I'm too scared.

05:02 I worked in postcodes ladies with the higher postcode -They saw me as the servant and do this and do that and come at this time and don't come at that time. The ladies in the poor area, they waited for me to come. They welcomed me in their homes. They offered me cups of teas. Muslim community, always offered me food. I loved eid. Because I ate in every house. I thoroughly enjoyed working with poorer people- they were more appreciative than the rich ones. And that was okay with me, because I gave as much care as I thought people needed. So if those of in the richer area didn't need the care, id give them their basic care – and this isn’t even - part of my role, but I would even teach them to cook and give them recipes for them to try out. You know so I just felt a part of them.

And in houses where I visited where there was already a toddler. I would always play with the toddler first before I look at the baby. I was part of the family Christmas, Christmas Day. I didn’t eat Christmas dinner in people's homes but I will always go home at the end of the day. With my uniform pocket stuff mince pie – I was offered the rum, but resisted. Every year midwives issues with diaries and when finished your visits you put it in the diary at the end of every day, I would evaluate my visits and I would write outstanding things in my diary in red so just in case I have to make any comparison. And I kept these diaries for every year I was practicing midwifery. So one day I thought I need to get rid of these diaries and I went through them and I looked at them before I got rid of them I thought I’d write a book . I wanted to write the book to leave it as a legacy for my children and my grandchildren. To let them know that it was not all plain sailing. And so it's written there because memory fades and some things you can't recall. So it's in writing. And it was also because of some of the racism that I experience so that I could send a copy to the head of midwifery to say this is what I experienced. Please don't let any body else go through this.

One of my major reasons – apart from age because I could have carried on but midwifery changed an awful lot. We were given time - we were timed – about 20 minutes in a home. And I I couldn't come to terms with working to time. I was there to give care, and my care was holistic, whatever ladies wanted, I would give it to them. We had hours yes from nine to five. But very often I'd be driving home at seven o'clock in the evening. Sometimes I'm driving home at seven o'clock and a suddenly realise Well, I don't know what happened but something would tell me that something wasn't quite right with the lady and I would turn around and go back. And when I got there, they would say Aw, thank God you've come because – and they would tell me the problem. Now when we were given time allotted times I couldn't do that. I had to be out of that house in 20 minutes. And I felt very uncomfortable working like that and that's when I told myself tend to go well.

One thing I’d hear, when I was walking down the road, or back to the area I was practicing in is- is people saying “Midwife I wish you were here, come back because the care is not the same” And that saddens me. One of the things that I would love to see reinstated. One midwife assigned to one woman.I mean, on my case book, even if I had 200 Ladies, I knew the names can't remember their names now mind you, but I knew their names, and I knew the needs and now ladies are not the same a midwife they can see a team of midwives. And I believe that's a negative thing. Because when you're having a baby, you need to relate to the Midwife. And Midwife is giving holistic care.

Now midwives are more or less doing a job. And I think women are losing out what women need to do is to be more vocal. Say what care they are expecting and what care they want to have and even get to stage where they with demand what they want? Because having a baby is a frightening thing. Bringing a baby home from the hospital is a scare thing. The mother is scared of the baby the father if he's present is scared of the baby. And it midwives aren’t visiting as often now because midwives are only around for a couple of days where they will return to? Whereas previously, they had our telephone number, visited 10 days regularly. And now they're missing out.

My Psalms 121 - I will lift up my eyes onto the hill from whence cometh my help. I said that everyday and it got me through when I had difficult situations – like a delivery in the dead of night, or at midnight and going out in the community all by myself. I would read that because without that I could not function.