to think that as an experienced midwife I should earn more than a window cleaner?

[whatinthewhatnow]

My mum's window cleaner charges £18 for an hour's work. I get £17. Does society really value window cleaners more than midwives?

In no way showing off, and this rarely happens, but I did dramatically save a teeny life on wednesday. It was really fricking scary. I work so hard, my women seem to really like me and I really do try so hard for them. I feel totally undervalued and stressed and I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth it, for £17 a bloody hour. FFS. .

My old cleaner gets more than me these days!

I just remind myself that I don't clean other peoples loos, and that almost makes up for the 10 odd years of higher education (full and part time) that I have put in.

I don't save lives, but I get to be nice to nice people most of the day, get the odd hug from a passing toddler and get ice cream on my birthday, and don't have to work in the pirana tank/bear pit that was my old environment. Could be a lot worse (and I no longer constantly watch my back and cry in the loos).

I agree, ds4 was born in September. I was admitted at 18+ 4 because I could feel my amniotic sack pushing through the cervix.

The SHO examined me told me I was 2 cm dialated and left. It was the mw that suggested and tried to find the consultant to look at placing an emergancy stitch. It was the same SHO who put me on a drip to induce me even though I'd had an emcs less than 7 months before even though I wasn't supposed to go on a drip due to the increased chance of uterine rupture.

Luckily the mw noticed.

Shecot what ridiculous claptrap you are spouting.

Of course a 2:2 in nursing is not the same as a 1st in physics because they are different classes of degrees. A first in nursing is equivalent to a first in physics because of university regulation and standardisation.

Nursing is a physically more demanding degree and combining study with full-time placements is more than I could have done when I did my own first degree at 18 (which was in the humanities).

I still maintain that no-one DESERVES to get paid more than anyone else.

I have been an academic, a teacher and will soon be a medical doctor. I have a stupid amount of qualifications but I did them because I wanted to not because they would earn me more money or make me more important.

Doctors don't "deserve" more than nurses or midwives. They simply would not be able to do their jobs without them. Any many nurses are now as qualified as their doctor colleagues in specialist areas.

As an aside, I teach antenatal classes and have many doctors as clients - if you ask them who the experts in childbirth are they unanimously say midwives.

I really don't like the suggestion that anyone should get paid more than anyone else tbh. Comes dangerously close to saying some people are more worthy than others. We are all products of our genetic tendencies, upbringings and opportunities and luck. I am grateful that dh and I have good degrees that earn us money, but I certainly don't take much credit for it. I'm not enough of a socialist to hand over most of our income to charity either. But do we deserve more than others? Certainly not. We're both teachers btw.

I 'll explain why midwifery is skilled. Although its tricky as strict nmc rules mean I have to be careful to protect identity and not discuss real life.
This was a recent shift.

8 am start. Dished out 18 women, 12 babies. Wasn't hard as only 2 of us

8.15. Drugs round. 2 lots antibiotics needed challenging or correcting as either prescribed incorrectly or not given to time. Broken off 3 times by patient needs. Told 2 in pain women they couldn't have analgesia just yet - sorry.

1. Extra staff.arrive. ace. Begin caring. Do 4 mum checks and 4 baby checks. Notice jaundice in one but judge it to be within normal limits.

10. spent 20 mins debriefing a scared young woman post bleed and also do tour/birthplan to try build better relationship for her.

Chase pharmacy take home drugs - correct Dr errors and add extras/remove unnecessary drugs.

Take bloods, chase outstanding bloods, deem them normal and begin discharge planning.

Notice bloodbank haven't been in touch regarding anti d. Chase, prescribe and administer.

Check positioning of a baby at breast. It's ok. Educate re positioning. Feeding cue, patterns, effective milk transfer and teach hand expression. Sign to say mum has been told.

Change intravenous infusion, after chasing anaesthetic staff for.correct fluids. Reprogramme iv pump.
Begin, analyse and deem reassuring 2 fetal heart traces and one scan for small for dates.

Take 20 mins to discuss. Document and sign to say my discharges know about safe sleeping, safe feeding. Registration, contraception etc etc. Ask 4 women about domestic violence when I catch them alone.
Sign to say they have been asked in person, alone and made no disclosure.

Make lengthy additions to a child protection case notes as case conference Is tomorrow and these will be used to plan care.

Pulled to delivery.suite to assist in care given to a woman who has just discovered her baby has sadly passed away inside. Everything was ok, midwife who took responsibility for her last monitor utterly devastated. Hold hand and try to answer the questions of very confused and angry partner.

Get caught up in emergency section preparation for pathological trace. Run with patient to theatre.

Go back t ward, spent 20mins with a baby who is a.scbu baby but I've arranged to come over. To try initiate feeding. Can't get it to breast feed, mum upset, baby keeps tube down. Feel crap.

Grab tea and crisps around 2.

Spend rest of shift doing discharge computer database and paperwork. Answer phones, speak to 2 ?labours. Decide to invite one in and advise to stay home.

Teach 15 year old to make bottle. She forgets by next.feed. take 15 mins convincing her to have anti d. Offer support during her panic and hysterics.
Try to convince her to stay in.

Take her through discharge against advice paperwork.

Alert services AMD managers to her discharge AMD my concerns.

Write 3 incident forms after shift ends at 4.
45 mins late off, eldest child annoyed.with me, no break. Time owed - 1.5 hrs.

I only work 8 hour days. Mostly we keep that up for 12.5 hrs. It's an amazingly diverse job.

I should explain what all that means. Midwives are can carriers. If my interpretation of bloods was wrong and there are implications, that's me. If anything happens to the babies I felt the traces were normal, that's down to me. If the wee lassie goes home and fails to care for that baby ok, that's me. I let her home. If the discharge drugs I hand out are prescribed incorrectly, patient has an unknown allergy, they prove wrong drugs. That's me. If bfing mum takes baby home and community find a cold hypoglycemic baby tomorrow through poor feeding, that's me. I deemed them fit for discharge. If I let the door.buzzer distract me whilst programming the pump. That drug error is mine and any conseqi my fault.

There is a.fair bit of responsibility! Truly there is, hence high.student and newly qualified drop out rates historically.

Funny, then with midwives being so clever and all that, that they don't get that the reason a window cleaner gets more pay is because window cleaning puts the life of the person doing it at more of a risk than a midwife.

Or that the concept of self-employment totally escapes them. .

I actually do NOT think that a midwife 'deserves' more than a window cleaner at all.

And, nor, apparently do the majority of people on this thread.

Teachers should get paid more than nurses, obviously.

shecot do you have any idea how many nurses are attacked doing their job?

How risky do you think climbing a ladder is?

So someone who puts themselfs at risk by climbing a ladder, which not all window cleaners do now btw, is worth mire than someone who saves lives?

So come on then, what fantastic job do you do and how much do you get paid for it?

I should explain what all that means. Midwives are can carriers. If my interpretation of bloods was wrong and there are implications, that's me. If anything happens to the babies I felt the traces were normal, that's down to me. If the wee lassie goes home and fails to care for that baby ok, that's me. I let her home. If the discharge drugs I hand out are prescribed incorrectly, patient has an unknown allergy, they prove wrong drugs. That's me. If bfing mum takes baby home and community find a cold hypoglycemic baby tomorrow through poor feeding, that's me. I deemed them fit for discharge. If I let the door.buzzer distract me whilst programming the pump. That drug error is mine and any conseqi my fault.

There is a.fair bit of responsibility! Truly there is, hence high.student and newly qualified drop out rates historically.

I have nothing but admiration for the midwives who assisted at both of my births. I am happy that there are well qualified and experienced people in the postions. However, having said that and after reading what you posted above I have to say...

That how can it be on you if the young girl decides to go home? No medical professional can make someone have treatment or stay in for support if they dont want to - as long as you did your job and gave her all the options that is not - and would not - be your fault.

If breastfeeding mum takes her baby home and has problems thats also not your fault - and could not be deemed to be if she then fails to achieve proper feeding. Some feeding problems only manifest themselves in the days or weeks after the patient has gone home and, again, if she has had all the information that she needed, including support numbers, then you have done your job.

The traces are done by machine and the printout is proof of your decision. One has to assume if you had the slightest doubt you would ask the advice of a colleague and then log that as done.

If a Dr has prescribed drugs for one of your patients then you cannot be blamed for his mistake. You would also not be negligable if a patient had a "unknown" allergy (one of the reasons I always fill in this bit of the forms with "not as far as I am aware") how can you know if someone is going to have an adverse reaction if they haven't had one previously?

I "get" the shoulders of resposibility. I work in a profession where I would be called on to explain my actions also. But, legally, if you have done your job, logged everything as you go and taken advice where necessary - these things would not be "on you". Sure you might feel guilty but that doesn't mean you are.

I certainly can be blamed for a doctors prescribing error, if I am the one dispensing the drug.

There is a massive blame culture in midwifery which you don't find in medicine.

A window cleaner is paid what his customers are prepared to pay him. Nurses are paid by the NHS. Maybe privatisation would lead to higher wages for nurses?

Sorry I meant to add, trial by NMC is not a legal trial in any sense, 'crimes' that would be thrown out by a court of law for lack of evidence etc have been regularly upheld by the NMC, you just need to look at the fitness to practice pages on there. Some of it is truly frightening as a professional.

Wow, my window cleaner is cheap! £4.50 for the whole house!

benedicts how would you know? Is your knowledge of drugs that of the Dr? given the millions of different drugs on the market you would surely only know if the Dr got it wrong if what he prescribed and what it says on your drugs form don't tally up? And in that case yes, I would expect you to check before dispensing it!

If a doctor makes a mistake you can be accountable for not noticing and administering the drug.

Even if things are well documented you can be investigated, which can be extremely stressful. I've known people give up their careers due to investigations. Even when it has been proved they were not responsible.

At a homebirth midwife there are no traces or consultants on tap if there are problems. There is no collegue to ask for advice either. At a homebirth a midwife does the paediatric examination.

I think its fair to compare nursing/ midwifery to physics or teaching.

The difficulty is that many private sector jobs have experience a huge fall in salaries where as the public sector has not. Public sector workers have been relatively cushioned against the credit crunch up to 2009. There is only so much that the private sector can support through taxes.

The difficulty is what the country can afford, rather than the worth of a person.

A self employed person often has high outgoings. Your window cleaner who charges £17 an hour will have to pay commerical vechicle insurance, accountant fees, advertising, equipment costs. The work is also erratic and there is no sick leave, pension etc. The real amount earned before tax may only be £8 per hour once you have included travel time (from house to house) and time spent looking for work.

Thanks nokidshere and in many ways you are right. However I do take the can for those things - no one is ever going to be able to make guidelines tight enough to protect practitioners whilst allowing for Individual care. So a trace may seem satisfactory at discharge but in the light of a sad outcome may be given a different interpretation.

I've had the 'you should not have signed that women's discharge' situation happen a few times. Not necessarily to me I mean on the ward.

We do indeed carry equal weight in administration of drugs, especially as most of the drugs we administer are Under our own volition under the medicine act.

Honestly if I thought about it all I'd go mad but generally we do alright. Were not always popular which.hurts sometimes but generally it's a unique role!

moomin my point was that to notice the Dr has made a mistake you must know the same as him in the first place - and you don't. Only if it can be shown that you knew what had prescribed was wrong and didn't take advice before administering it can you shoulder some of the responsibility.

Nokids, as an autonomous practitioner I should be very sure when dispensing drugs, we all have several copies of BNF's floating about that are well thumbed, most doctors don't actually know that many drugs or dosages off the top of their head and I've had to correct many a new doctor on frequently used medicines in maternity. It doesn't matter what the doctor prescribes, if I give it and it's wrong then the question asked would not be 'Why did Dr X get the dosage/drug wrong' but 'Why did Benedict give that drug without checking it was correct?'

You tend to have a very good understanding of the medication as you work with it most days, if a dr prescribed to high a dose, the nurse should realise this. There are all sorts of reasons something prescribed might not be suitable for a patient. Sometimes it's the nurse or mw that notice. As in my case.

It would be irresponsible of a nurse/mw to administe meds they had no understanding of

Climbing a ladder is more risky than being a midwife, ffs. Now if you were to compare it to a firefighter, I'd say, 'yep' that is MORE risky than being a window cleaner.
And while I admit that being a psychiatric nurse or casualty nurse is probably a risky profession, a mdiwife, hmm... does not seem a risky profession at all, sorry.

Tree I understand that individual interpretation can be misleading. However, under your safegaurding rules, you would have generally taken a second opinion before making the final decision surely? I work alone, my word would have to be enough if I was ever called upon to provide evidence of safeguarding my clients, but in a ward that should be more difficult because its shared care and therefore more than one person should know about it.

Try telling that to my colleague who got punched in the face by an irate dad.