‘I can’t just do that, Mum,’ I said initially, not wanting to put myself in an awkward position with my employers.
‘Please, Linda, love. Could you just ask the question?’
That was typical of my mum. She always said ‘if you don’t ask you don’t get’ and, even though I didn’t always feel comfortable sharing that attitude, I admired my mum for practising what she preached. Reluctantly, I phoned the Assistant Matron’s secretary, explained the situation and asked if there might possibly be any vacancies.
‘Actually, yes there are, Sister Buckley,’ came the reply. ‘If your mother can come in for an interview this afternoon we may have just the job for her, but could she start soon?’
Mum couldn’t believe her good fortune and hot-footed it to the hospital a few hours later, whereupon she secured herself a part-time post in the outpatients department of the main hospital, doing clerical work for the ECG patients. She was given a white tunic to wear and told to report for duty the very next morning.
‘Thanks, Linda,’ she said gratefully. ‘It just goes to show …’
‘If you don’t ask you don’t get?’ I laughed. ‘I thought you might say that.’
Still, I couldn’t get over how incredibly lucky she had been with her timing. Something like that could never happen in this day and age. Jobs would never be given out to family members in such a way, and quite rightly so, but this was a different era and my mum certainly benefited from the old-fashioned way of things.
My parents lived in Ashton now and so Mum would even be able to walk to the hospital. Occasionally, we might be able to meet in the canteen for a cup of tea together if our shifts allowed. It seemed meant to be and, all things considered, I felt very blessed with my lot in life.
One afternoon I was sent to work on the antenatal ward as it was short-staffed. I didn’t mind being moved around the wards; in fact I quite liked the change. I usually enjoyed the atmosphere on the antenatal ward. Expectation and excitement always hung in the air, yet there was typically a much calmer vibe than on the labour ward. The women here all had some sort of complication, warranting their stay in hospital before giving birth, which tempered their excitement a little.
It seemed quite peaceful today, despite the ward being full. There was a lady on bed rest who was expecting twins, and several women who were being monitored because they had high blood pressure. One woman, Beryl Johnson, was suffering from a severe chest infection and had been admitted earlier that day for observation and rest. She had the curtain pulled around her bed as she was coughing and spluttering, which made some of the other patients pass remarks.
‘You’d think they’d have put her in a side room,’ one woman said sympathetically.
‘Maybe there isn’t room,’ another replied. ‘Sounds like she’s getting worse, though.’
The women generally didn’t complain, but when they’d been confined to their beds for days or sometimes weeks, they would talk about anything and everything that came into their heads. You might hear them voicing opinions on the latest IRA atrocity or the Vietnam War one minute, swapping recipes or knitting patterns the next or debating whether the Osmonds or the Jackson Five were the best family singing group.
The most popular topic of conversation, of course, was always what had happened to other women they had met on the ward, who had now had their babies and left. At the start of this shift I gathered that a few weeks earlier a patient called Rowena had given birth to a very premature baby, as I heard one of the patients asking my colleague, Susan, how things were with that ‘tiny little mite’.
‘I couldn’t believe my eyes,’ I heard the patient say. ‘What a shock it must have been for Rowena. She was such a lovely girl, too.’
‘What exactly happened?’ I asked Susan when we had a tea break. ‘Oh, Linda, it was quite a drama,’ Susan explained. ‘I’m surprised this hasn’t gone all over the hospital.’
She told me that Rowena had gone into premature labour at just 28 weeks.
‘We were hoping the bed rest might stop things, but she suddenly pushed the baby out, totally without warning! It gave her such a terrible shock. She screamed hysterically, setting the whole ward into quite a panic.’
I dearly hoped the ending of the story was happy for Rowena and her baby, and I listened earnestly as Susan went on to tell me that Stella, a very competent new pupil midwife, was there in a flash.
‘Honestly, you’d have thought she’d been doing this for years. Stella was ace. She wrapped the baby in a towel, tucked it down the front of her uniform and dashed across to Special Care, before you could blink.’
‘And the baby survived?’
‘Yes, he did!’ Susan replied. ‘It was a little boy. We heard he weighed just one pound, eight ounces, but he survived. Rowena has promised to pop in and keep us posted. Fingers crossed he’s doing OK.’
This story inevitably reminded me of Muriel Turner, my patient at the old maternity unit whose premature baby appeared so frail and lifeless I thought he was dead, until he let out a very unexpected but very welcome cry. I relayed Muriel’s story to Susan, explaining that I had carried the baby to the sluice, covered with a towel in a tiny bowl, thinking he hadn’t made it.
‘But he lived too, and he went home after about sixteen weeks,’ I said. ‘Let’s hope Rowena’s little boy proves to be just as much of a fighter.’
Muriel’s story always gave me a good feeling and I never tired of telling it, especially in circumstances like this. In my mind, if Muriel’s miracle baby could survive, there was hope for each and every premature baby, even this incredibly tiny one.
Returning from our break, Susan and I were alarmed to hear that Beryl Johnson’s coughing had intensified quite significantly. Stella was on duty and looked extremely anxious as she stepped out through the curtain pulled around Mrs Johnson’s bed.
‘I’ve tried to make her as comfortable as possible,’ Stella said. ‘She’s sitting in a chair and I’ve encouraged her to sip some water, but nothing seems to be working.’
It was at times like this that I was grateful for my nurses’ training. Sometimes pregnant women are actually ill rather than suffering from a complication related to their condition, and I thought that perhaps an antenatal ward was not the best place for Mrs Johnson. She was thirty-six weeks pregnant, and the strain of coughing so vigorously must have been absolutely exhausting for her. She had been treated by her GP for repeated chest infections, but clearly none of the medication she had been given had managed to ease her chest or get the infection under control.
I offered to take over from Stella and found Mrs Johnson propped up uncomfortably in the chair, clutching her abdomen protectively each time her body choked out another wheezy, involuntary cough.
‘I’m going to move you into a side ward and call the medical registrar,’ I told her.
‘Thank, huurgh huurrrgh th-thank you,’ she spluttered.
The effort of speaking seemed tremendous. Mrs Johnson had bags under her eyes and not just dark circles but nearly black ones, and deep lines creased into her forehead. I saw from her notes she had recently turned thirty-five, but she looked ten years older. Her breathing was so laboured in-between coughs that she sounded like a person with severe asthma, and it was very apparent she needed more than the antenatal care we could give her on this ward.
Transferring her into a vacant side room along the corridor was difficult. Evelyn, a strong and capable auxiliary, helped me to guide Mrs Johnson into a wheelchair, but by now she was coughing so violently I was willing the medical registrar to arrive any second to take over the care of this patient.
‘The