Hello there!
So I am currently 30 weeks pregnant with my first baby, I am a community health care assistant which basically entails me going into elderly peoples homes and helping them with every day tasks such as showering, dressing, food prep and toileting, I work in three shifts, 6 days a week from 7am to 7pm working in my local area doing mornings, lunch times and evening calls, I don't drive and have been walking my round since I first started.
I told my manager I was pregnant back when I was about 10 weeks, due to excitement and another of my colleges finding out around the same time and even though she mentioned it then and had taken a client which I did at the time off me due to him being unpredictable I have never actually had a risk assessment! But trying to steal a 5 min window with my manager is like trying to get blood out of stone!
I gave in my first request for MAT leave at 24 weeks on the 16th January 2015 stating that I wanted it to start my mat leave on the 1st April 2015 with that in mind I still had four weeks (28 days) of holiday to take before hand, which means I would actually start on 3rd March, it took 29 days and 4 phone calls to find out that I wasn't actually entitled to any more holiday due to them running from totally different dates than I had been told! .. So I wrote a second letter of request on the 11th February asking to start my mat leave 28 days from that day (12th March) .. I still haven't got a reply and today is the 25th February.
For the last two months I have found my job very demanding and tiering, and have tried numerous times to cut down my hours to only be told I need to give them four weeks notice and to fill out a "change of availability form" .. There's no point in doing this I am hoping to leave within two weeks!!
I look after a lady who is in a wheelchair, who only has one leg.. She is mostly independent and manages most things her self but I go in at 7am I help her dress and use the toilet, although she can do most things herself she is proving to be very difficult for me to do as her call means me bending over and stretching and holding her still for long periods of time and it's physically exhausting!!
When I spoke to my line manager she said she would take this lady off me (this was Tuesday 24th march) today I get a phone call off another of my line managers telling me that I have to meet her at the lady's house on Friday (27th march) to "show her why I find this lady so difficult!!!" .. I feel very small and undermined by my managers and I feel this is totally unfair of them!
As you can see my work have done nothing but cause me stress this whole last 20 weeks of my pregnancy and this is really the last straw for me!
My question is really if I go and speak to my doctor, do you think I have enough grounds for him to sign me off! .. I don't think I can cope even for these last (Hopefully) two weeks!
Thanks for reading my essay! ????