Meet Julie, a Rural Midwife

Here at Nurse Uncut, we enjoy featuring different people from a variety of medical background. In this post, we bring to you Julie, a rural midwife based in country New South Wales.

Tell me something about yourself (your family, hobbies, where you’re based)

I have been happily married for 30 years and we have two daughters who are both nursing.

We plan to semi retire in the next year or two so we can travel in our caravan

My hobbies are caravanning, bushwalking, reading and playing on the computer and of course our dogs who give us unconditional love.

I am based at Singleton Hospital and have been there for 29 years, give or take a few years when I was having my children. My role in the team is a big part of my life and I have seen many changes over the years.

How did you become a midwife? How long have you been one?

After completing my General Training at Sutherland Hospital in 1976, I traveled to WA and commenced my Midwifery training at St. John of God Subiaco. I actually met my husband while in WA and after completing my training in 1977 I moved to Mt Newman to be close to him. I worked at Mt Newman Hospital as a Midwife/RN for two years before we moved back to NSW. We traveled for a year overseas and then settled in Singleton in 1980.

What are the challenges of being a rural midwife?

There are many challenges as you must be multi-skilled in a rural hospital. Our ward is Maternity/Surgical and our skill mix is a midwife (hopefully two), RN and EEN. Sometimes the midwife may be rostered with two EEN’s, meaning she is the only RM/RN on that shift. We have 6 Maternity beds, 2 Birthing Suites and 13 – 16 general beds. Our patients may include Antenatal, postnatal, surgical, medical, aged care and children.

We have Antenatal shared care/booking in clinics, Parenting Education Classes and do antenatal assessment on any woman who presents from early pregnancy to birth. We work closely with our visiting GP obstetricians as we have no RMO’s or staff specialists on site.

Besides working in our unit, we may also be required to work in A&E, Day Surgery, Recovery and occasionally in the Medical Ward.

So you can see that we must be multi skilled.

What are the rewards? What do you love most about being a midwife?

Sharing such a special part of mothers, partners and families lives and giving them the support to empower them through their labour and postnatal period.

Supporting them through the happy and sad times.

Is there a difference between a rural and urban midwife? If yes, what are they?

We all want the same outcomes, but having worked for a short time in an urban hospital, where you are either in Birthing Suite, Nursery or Postnatal wards, I find it very rewarding to be able to care for a mother throughout her stay with us.

In a rural area, especially when you are part of the community we often meet the mothers and families at the local shops. Many times I am stopped and shown the baby, and thankfully they understand when I can’t remember names but mostly I do recognize the mother or father’s faces.

Can you share the most unforgettable experience you have as a midwife — it could be an example of a patient whose baby almost died or something that depicts human strength in times of adversity sort of thing.

There are numerous memories, some sad many happy. But I think the team work that is involved when we have a retrieval. From the moment that the decision is made and the retrieval team is contacted we all work as a team, whether it is the EN who is left to care for the other patients on the ward, the on call midwife who comes when needed, the PSS staff who supply refreshments, the orderly who turns the lights on for the helicopter (if at night) or meets them and brings them to Labour Ward or nursery, the GP who is making decisions in sometimes difficult circumstances and the midwife who is caring for the baby, mother, father and extended family. We all give a collective sigh of relief when the Retrieval team arrives then we offer as much assistance as required while they are stabilizing the baby for transfer.

What is midwifery nirvana for you meaning if you could have a wish list of what you’d like in your job, what would that wish list look like?

Gosh the list could go on forever but I suppose for the rural areas it would be:

More choices for rural mothers

We have recently started a Share care clinic to allow women the choice of visiting with a midwife on a regular basis, working with the GP Obstetricians. We have taken on an education role supplying information and education on pregnancy, labour, birth, breastfeeding. We also do psychosocial assessments and refer when necessary. This has allowed our mothers to meet some of the midwives. This has been a pleasant change for the mothers as well as the midwives giving us the opportunity to better meet their needs.

Mothers in rural areas often have to travel for higher level care. If we could offer more choices in the local area this would allow women to birth close to their families. This doesn’t mean the complicated high risk pregnancy but just normal low risk pregnancies.

More midwives.

It is an ongoing battle the last few years in rural areas as well as urban to meet the staff shortages of both midwives and nurses. We are attempting to overcome this problem by employing student midwives who do some placements at the tertiary hospitals to gain experience in high risk pregnancies and births but the majority of their time is with us at Singleton.

How did you find out about Nurse Uncut?

The Lamp

What do you want to get most out of Nurse Uncut?

Just read and communicate with other nurses & midwives, hear their stories, laugh and cry with them.