To be nervous that the doctors' strike is on my due date?

[MrsCrimshaw]

Firstly, I know it's unlikely that my (first) baby will be born on the due date. However I do have some worries, however irrational they may be, that the hospital in general will be under a great deal of pressure on the strike dates, and this might affect the availability of consultants and anaesthetists, should I need their intervention.

I tried to discuss this with my OH last night (he is a medic himself), and he was totally dismissive, becoming really frustrated and "off" with me the more I tried to discuss it with him. It turned into an argument, and I still don't feel any better about it.

I wouldn't worry too much. I would imagine if it impacts anything if will be planned c sections/inductions which aren't urgent rather than anyone who is actually in labour.

That said, I can fully understand why you are anxious about it and probably would be in your shoes

YABU. There will be cover. Lives will not be put at risk.

All the midwives will still be there and the hospital will be staffed by consultants. They are all making plans now for the strikes as the BMA gave them the dates early so there are plenty of contingency plans being made.

Please don't worry. You will still get excellent care.

(And if the junior doctors get their way, excellent care in the future.)

I it won't cause any problems at all. Not for women in labour.

Midwives will still be working. Instead of there been an SHo, a registrar and consultant on the labour ward there will be 3x consultants. So better care!

Though not sure if their cannulating skills might be a bit rusty! Bet it's a while since they did one. . I might ring the anaesthetist rather than the obs consultant if I can't get a cannula in!

The people who will be affected are those having routine consultant clinic appts.....I imagine these will be cancelled as the consultants will be busy elsewhere.

Not that I'm saying care by sho or reg is poor care. Just read that back and don't want it to be misinterpreted. But a consultant does have more experience than a gP trainee sho who has been doing obstetrics for a coup,e of months!

It'll be a nightmare for the midwives. A lot of the consultants have forgotten how to be a junior doctor and a good 75% of ours can't prescribe on the electronic system. I foresee a few days of working old school exclusively with paper and pen.

I have some doctor friends, and talking to them, their expectation is that it'll be the patients with routine, or planned stuff, that will be affected.

So planned c-sections, planned inductions, routine ante-natal appointments, are likely to be moved, so that there is consultant obstetric cover there for women in labour or requiring emergency c-sections. Same with anaesthetists - any planned surgery that can be delayed will most likely be cancelled, so that the consultant anaesthetists are available for any emergency operations that are needed on that day.

Thank you for the reassurances. I fully support the doctors' strike action and believe it is totally justified. However, I've never had any hospital procedure before, let alone given birth and I am a bit terrified of the whole thing.

whothefuckissimon my OH prides himself on his ability to cannulate anyone, so he could always step in!

It will be better care is anything in maternity units because all consultants rather than junior doctors will be on call. So you will have midwifes and 5 consultants rather than midwifed, 4 junior doctors and 1 consultant

Most consultants seem to support the strike action, and will step in to cover for their junior colleagues.

TBH as others have said, you will probably get better care

In Kings or Guys a few years back they experimented with triage and swooped everyone into a consultant straight away. They had cleared the department by teatime and everyone was sitting around twiddling their thumbs. That had apparently never happened before, ever. For me it said a lot about the amount of sheer faffing that goes on in complex organisations and how smart-bombing it with the right technical expertise can transform user experiences.

YANBU to be nervous, it's your first baby so you're going to be nervous anyway and this is something that's a change from the norm so it's perfectly natural that it will put you on edge. I'm certain they've got it covered though so honestly it won't affect your care, they'll just not book in any non essential stuff on that day which will take a huge load of work away and make sure they've got plenty of resources available for the essential stuff like you having your baby. You absolutely don't need to worry but it's perfectly okay that you are, you're pregnant and are entitled to worry about stuff unnecessarily, it's pretty much par for the course.

Yes, faffing is at unreal levels.

As a midwife if I see a woman who is poorly and needs reviewing I've normally got a good idea what's wrong with her, taken all obs and any necessary bloods and started a monitoring within ten mins.

I then have to call an ShO to review her. SHO may take a few hours to turn up if they were busy in gynae or theatres. SHO may well only have been doing obstetrics for a few weeks. They then repeat all my questions and then come and ask me what I think. Ive been present where an SHO has been doing a speculum (after ive shown them how it works) amd then they're asking me if that's a cervix they can see up there (it was).

So I give the SHO my opinion. They suck their pen for a while, ask me a few questions like "what's a Doppler" and then decide to run it past their registrar. So off they trot to find their reg and come back a while later to tell me something I knew three hours ago.

. Consultants only will speed things up I reckon!

But the SHO needs to learn, so a bit of faffing needs to happen so that the speediness of consultants can happen. Some things, much like for Simon, just come with experience and time.

(Been the SHO and have been very thankful for the nurses and MWs who have seen it before!)

I'd heard that it will be rather like a Sunday, but with more consultants around.

So things like A&E and labour wards will be working normally, and care for existing inpatients will continue. There won't be new elective admissions, and some procedures might have to be bunched the days before and after.

Honestly, don't worry.
The majority of labours never need a doctor anyway. And you've as much chance of going into labour on your due date as anyone else/any subsequent babies.

No, it will be the similar to Christmas or any PH only more consultants going about. I'd be more concerned if nurses/midwives went on strike. You'll be just fine

Yes, midwives going on strike when you're due to give birth would be much more worrying!

Please don't worry the shop floor will be fully staffed by consultants.

Some of us are trying frantically to regain or learn new skills that have come along since our junior doc days eg. I've done the e-learning this week to prescribe discharge drugs electronically (I never had to do this as a trainee and day to day I only do impatient prescriptions).

Routine work will be disrupted to free us all up but emergency care should be stellar.

And I'm great at cannulation!!

Gas men are the best cannulators

I love impatient prescriptions gasman, are they due to the length of three operating list or the e personality type of the consultant?!

OP you will still get excellent emergency care, it's routine work that's going to be affected so if you went overdue for eg, a clinic appt might be moved. All the best with your baby.

Typos galore when I'm correcting someone else . The not three and no extra random e, in case it wasn't clear.

I think your biggest problem will be having a partner that's a medic - DH was a PITA when we had DS. I sent him home at one point because he was driving me crazy. At least if there are less drs around he won't have as much opportunity to go off on a medical tangent when chatting to the staff.

Don't worry about medical cover, the point of the strike announcement so early was so that hospitals could sort out cover for emergencies/ births etc I know all the consultants in DHs department are working those days and the MWs will still be working. You will be well looked after no matter what day you go into labour, it will have a much greater effect on routine appointments. Enjoy your baby.

I'm always impatient about prescriptions, they take ages to come back from pharmacy!

And yes, the backstabbers/gasmen are very good at cannulating.

Thanks OP for asking this question. My due date is also bang in the middle of the strikes so I could well go into labour when they strike.
Just like you I totally support the strikes and recognise that they will always affect someone so why not me.
I also argued with DH last night about this!
However WANBU to be nervous. We're about to give birth and it's reasonable to want the best conditions possible. I'm reassured to read from so many other posters that having more consultants should speed things up.
I agree that if nurses/midwives were on strike that would be even worse.
I hope that everything goes well OP :)