NHS Maternity Ward "Nurses"

Nurse Anne is grumpy and is feeling like being very picky this morning.

Over the last few years I have seen many news articles about maternity ward "nurses".  They are depicted as lazy and unhelpful.  This woman thinks she saw maternity ward "nurses" sat on facebook.   No doubt she saw staff on the computer.  Staff have to do lots of work on the computer, in real time rather than later when all the patients have had their needs met.  Otherwise they get their asses handed to them on a plate..  But rest assured that the staff in this situation were not nurses.  You must also realise that social networking sites are banned from hospital computers.

Head over to mumsnet type forums and you will often see mothers bitching about the "maternity ward nurses".

I find this very amusing as maternity wards in the NHS do not employ Nurses.

 There is not one maternity ward that I know of that has RN's on staff.  Not one.  Maybe some have RN's on staff but I have never seen it.  Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

NHS maternity wards employ Midwives and health care assistants. That's it.  There are no generic nurses on staff there.  None.

Your average maternity ward will have too few midwives running between too many patients.  The only other staff involved with patient care are the health care assistants who cannot help with very much, who have no training and who might as well be sat on facebook for all that they are allowed to do.  

They are not Nurses as they have no training, and no registration.  They cannot answer a lot of your questions when the midwife is busy because healthcare assistants are not trained at all.  They cannot give you pain meds, sort out your drip, nor can they deliver a baby.   They are not given much in the way of information about your situation.  They probably aren't allowed to know anything about you because they are not registered professionals with training.  They are not allowed to get involved with your discharge.  And the overloaded midwife is running her ass off. It's not their fault that the trust is hiring these people instead of qualified staff.  It is not the overloaded midwives fault either.  For all the good health care assistants who are good there are 10 who are young, immature, and quick to give the two finger salute to the midwife if she tells them to get off facebook.  Management does nothing about the cheap labour with attitude.  If they piss off the cheap labour they might have to hire qualified staff! Gasp!

If I hear one more person bitching about maternity ward "nurses" and how stupid or lazy they are I will blow a fucking gasket.  Maybe if these "nurses" were actually NURSES they would have been able to deal with your questions/problems whatever.   Maybe if they were qualified professionals who knew your situation and were allowed to deal with stuff they wouldn't be sat on facebook.  Did it ever occur to you that your lack of care is down to a lack of midwives. No wonder these midwives are so damn grouchy.  I love maternity.  I love babies and I am fascinated with childbirth.  But I wouldn't walk a mile in the midwives shoes for all the money and gold in the world.   I would love a job on the maternity units assisting but I would never retrain as a Midwife.  The lives of all those precious mums and babes in my hands with no staff and no resources.  I'd flip out real fast and that would make me your run of the mill miserable midwife.

I think it would be quite helpful to the midwives to have professional registered nurses assisting them in the maternity suites.  I may not be a midwife but I had loads of maternity training in my nursing program.  I think I could assist the Midwives very well.  Too bad there is no chance of getting a job on maternity because THEY DON'T ACTUALLY HIRE FUCKING NURSES ON THE MATERNITY WARD.  Not in my neck of the woods anyway.

If anyone does know of a maternity unit that hires real nurses drop me a line a militantmedicalnurse@gmail.com. 

Maybe if the public and the media could actually get their semantics right they would have a clue about what is going on rather than that uninformed paranoid hysteria that they direct to frontline staff.  But they refuse to listen, and management takes advantage of their lack of understanding.  Same shit different specialty.

Rant over.