Durham/Newcastle/in-between 2011: the Spiglet has arrived!

[StealthPolarBear]

Waiting for Kara...

Can I just say aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhh?

T will only sleep on a bed with me sat next to him. The minute I leave the room he wakes up. M&H are fighting like cat and dog so I make plans to go out this morning. DP tells me, 15 mins before we are due to leave, that he has arranged for the builder to come round this morning. I'm going to go stark staring bonkers. aaaaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhh again.

Ahem, sorry for that just needed to rant.

Have you found out any more about the hb ban Leggy? I can't find the link I was talking about so I don't know any more.

How about night out in Aug? Frozen- will that be ok with you- will DH still be available for babysitting duties?

Hmm it has gone quiet- that either means that they have killed each other or they are up to no good. I'm not quite brave enough to investigate....

Not found out more, but will see what is said at the meeting tomorrow.

durhamdoula.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/whats-happening-to-birth-choice-and-birth-safety-in-county-durham/

not good. Not in the area but if I can do anything to help I would be happy to.

There have been really, really bad staffing shortages. They are currently using ALL bank MWs available to them. THe MWs themselves decided to close Bishop MLU as they couldn't provide safe care witht he staff level that they had. This will be for a couple of months. MW led care is being provided at Darlington instead. They were not booking new HBs for the period but are still doing those that were already booked in.

Below is the e-mail a friend who had a HB booked (which took place) had form Angela Holt, the head of midwifery.

Since reaching the very difficult decision to suspend intrapartum care
at the Midwifery-led Unit and the homebirth service we have been
looking at ways of supporting the small number of home births we have
booked as this has caused a great deal of concern and upset for the
women affected. With a great deal of support from the midwifery team
we have agreed that we can provide an on-call service to cover the
small number of home births we have planned. I need to emphasise that
this has been made possible by the desire by midwives to support women
as much as possible to achieve their choices for childbirth and I am
supporting them in every way I can.

We very much regret that we have had to take the decision to suspend
the service at the Midwifery-Led Unit which I am sure you appreciate
has not been taken without a great deal of discussion and planning. It
is in fact the midwives themselves who have driven this decision and
it has been taken with open and frank discussion with them. We have
explored all potential solutions to keep the unit open but the
midwives are in agreement that the safest option for mothers and
babies is to suspend this service at the stand-alone unit at Bishop
Auckland for this short period and reprovide a midwifery led facility
on the Darlington site. A dedicated area has been identified where
mothers can have the same care as they would receive at Bishop
Auckland but attached to the consultant unit.

I must emphasise that this decision is not a financial one it is made
purely on the basis of keeping mothers and babies as safe as possible
whilst the staffing levels are brought back to their required level.
We have used all the bank midwifery staff available to us but due to
staff turnover in our three maternity units they are fully utilised.
It is important that we keep staffing levels safe on all sites but
especially where mothers who are at high risk of developing problems
are delivering.

I trust that we will be able to satisfy your desire for a home
delivery and you have a happy and healthy experience

I hope someone can make the MSLC today, I really can't as we are all still under the weather.

I booked in with the MW last week and I have booked in for a HB no problem at all.

Having looked at the blog post, part of the e-mail I've copied is on there, the person they are talking about is my friend, she had a doula for her birth. I do agree is is worrying, I am concerned at HOW exactly staffing levels got so low and what plans they have in place to prevent is happening again.

Really wish I could be at the meeting. I missed the last one too but we are all snotty and coughing badly plus I have had no sleep th past few nights and I wouldn't consider myself safe to drive.

Leggy if you are going and don't mind droppng round for coffee later in the week I would love to hear how it goes.

exactly Indith, the question is how has it got so short staffed and what are they doing about it. Especially if it is so bad that all available bank mws are being used already.

hope you feel better soon, the weather isn't helping! Do you still want the shrek videos- I keep forgetting about them!

They got so understaffed due I think to long term sickness and a gap between some people leaving and new staff coming in; that's what the news coverage about Bishop says.

I've been asked to go this afternoon partly to emphasise how valued HBs are and to make sure that this doesn't become a long term scenario. Frankly, given the lack of a pool at UHND and the poor aftercare my friend had at Darlington, I'll be hiring an independant MW before I go into hospital next time around. I neeeeed my pool!

Indith are you coming for lunch next Tuesday? If not coffee at some point would be fine too; just pm me your number.

good luck Leggy- I'm sure you'll put it across fabulously

Hope the meeting went well Leggy. I usually try to go to them anyway as I think they are really good and no mothers/general members of the public really go to them but the whole point of them really is making that link between the midwives and health visitors and the public, if we don't go then it is just a load of HCPs, they need the public input.

I have e-mailed the chair anyway. I do actually feel that they were pretty honest in what they said, I think that it must have been a bloody difficult decision to make but, and I have said this to the chair, I do think that a statement may be necessary to say what they will be doing to ensure it doesn't happen in the future because, well, just look at this thread for starters, talking about home births being banned completely. The internet is terrible for sending round wild rumours off the back of a fairly sensible and honest statement that things were being suspended for a couple fo months for good, valid, safety reasons. We have a great bunch of active doulas and birth choices champions in this area which is great but I think in this case it has lead to a lot of worry and stress as people got up i arms about the suspension of services and I think that some damage control and reassurance is needed otherwise there are going to be a lot of people around thinking that they are trying to take away our bith choices completely when they are absolutely, categorically not trying to do so.

I agree though Leggy that there isn't all that much choice round here with the lack of a pool. Bishop is just too bloody far to go when in labour. The ward at Dryburn is fairly good really but they can't fit a pool into the hospital. Trouble is you can't exaclt have both a home ffrom home MLU and an all singing and dancing hospital within half an hour form everyone inthe country! I really, really want a pool again for this one, need to start trying to find a second hand one or save up to rent one. Can't really justify the hunded squids though, if I managed to save that up there would be so many other things to spend it on like the bathroom, insulation, splitting the loft room (you know so we actually have somewhere to put the baby when I kick it out of our bed), the list goes on!

Haven't got a birth pool to lend out but I do have a birthing ball, maternity tens and a doppler. If you haven't got any of them already and want to borrow then just let me know (I found the Tens useful for the afterpains.)

MEeting went quite well. There were a few of us there including two ladies booked in for HBs who have been told they may not happen (one is due at start of Sept so very stressful for her!) Basic problem is that although staff shortages should be over by November (if the NQ midwives' registrations come through on time) said batch of new qualified staff won't be allowed onto the community or Bishop team until they've got more experience in hospital so they'll aim for staff rotation to compensate but although Bishop WILL reopen in September they're not giving a date when they'd feel it okay to offer HBs again. It was eminently clear though that although staff shortages were alledged to occur across the board, they are pulling CMWs into Dryburn to keep staff levels safe there.

Anyway alternatives were proposed like the NHS paying for York Storks to do some HBs up here (hardly any different in price to an obstetrician and three nights stay at the hospital and less than a CS).

There'll be more discussion at the next liaison meeting and I'm on the mail list now so will let y'all know!

Indith - J is refusing to contemplate me using my pool a second time and insisting we should get a new one in case of leaks or something so by all means borrow mine before I lose the argument and it just becomes a play pool!

Indith - I also have raspberry leaf tea tablets and half a bottle of clary sage oil you can have as well!
Hope you will feel up to joining us for lunch on Tuesday, how is the MS?

Bring on the free stuff

I'll know about lunch this weekend, it depends on my sister as she is up in the NE 26th/27th and it is her 30th on the 27th. I'm hoping to see her as teh alternative is probably having ot go to a BBQ in Leeds at the weekend with all her random and rather odd mates.

Leggy the pool I used last time was 3rd hand! It did get a hole in with me though but was fine for the birth and spent a summer being used as a paddling pool before the hole got too big. The double chamber did the job though and there was no leaking water. If you don't win the argument though then that would be absolutely and utterly wonderful, then I can just buy a new liner.

The chair told me there will be an extraordinary meeting with the head of midwifery there so I will certainly be aiming to get to that as well as the next meeting in September.

Looks like I will be in Durham around lunch time but with my sister instead, although you never know if what she says will actually come true or not . Anyway she is a child free, child hating sort of a person who calls herself a feminist but is someone I would say gives feminism a bad name. She is very opinionated and while sort of pretending that she doesn't hate kids (because you cna't hate a whole section of society and if you hate kids you discriminate against women) she has a very low tolorance and the sort of normal behaviour all our lot get up to in a cafe would have her ranting about mothers who think the world revolves around them because they have kids for days.

Anyway this makes me rather glad you lot are going to Esquires, I shall take her to Cafe Continental for some birthday cake and tell you about exactly why I dislike Esquires later (not that bad, I had a friend who worked there. Avoid the paninis and choose a cake that look like it has just been started not the last couple of slices of something).

Thankfully she is coming with her bf who really likes kids and is great with them so hopefully it won't be too excruciatingly bad.

Hi everyone :) Hi Indith, how's the being pregnant going?

Long shot but JUUUUUUUUUUUUNEY - you around?

Are you suffering morning sickness? I can't remember if you did in the past?

Halloooo I am around

Not sure if I'll be there on Tuesday, got both girls and not sure I can contain them both in a small space (and I call myself a nanny!)

:o

Wow that was quick - talk about service!
Do you live near(ish) the QEH and are there any nice restaurants round there? I have an interview there on Wednesday and I want to convince DH to go out for dinner tonight and at the same time drive past the hospital and scope out where I'll need to go.

I'm such an old romantic!

I rather like knowing that a nanny is normal and not some sort of super childcare guru

Not been sick but still have general nausea. Worse in afternoon and evening which is an absolute pain relly,especially when dh is away. Just when you actually need to be able to get stuff done once the dcs are in bed I'm on the sofa dying quietly! Oh well, just a few more weeks and it should pass.

We have friends coming for dinner tonight, I really should go tidy up a bit downstairs while the dcs are at the park.

I work near the QEH, it's on Old Durham Road and I don't tend to walk that way much, but on Durham Road there's the Imperial Chinese or on Kells Lane - Last Days of the Raj (Indian)

Out for dinner do couple still do that sort of thing?

Oh no :(

Just had to re-read your last sentence - was thinking "surely she wouldn't let them go to the park on their own!!" then I remembered it is a weekend and presumably your DH is about :o Enjoy your meal.

I agree - we went to see a CM today, house all tidy, everything organised and calm, why can't I do that?

I can pretend to be a super childcare guru

Hope your nausea eases up, how many weeks are you now?

I'm hoping to join you all in 2013

thanks juney - will look into those.

oooooooooooh :o
BABIES