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News

Male midwife suspended after attending homebirth

34 replies

mears · 17/07/2004 17:16

Has anyone seen this today? It was in the Scottish Daily Mail but I cannot find a link. Managers at Peterborough District Hospital are refusing to allow planned home deliveries saying there is a shortage of midwives. The male midwife attended when a woman who planned to give birth at home called to say she was in labour. The midwife had already told her she had that right. He was suspended 3 days later. As he says, the hospital is definately short staffed now.

OP posts:

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coppertop · 17/07/2004 17:17

He was my MW with ds2 and was/is absolutely brilliant at his job. The way he has been treated is disgusting IMO.

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coppertop · 17/07/2004 17:31

I can't do links but if you go to:

www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk

the story is in the Health section.

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SenoraPostrophe · 17/07/2004 17:37

its here

Don't know the legal ins and outs, but I would have thought that having a midwife suspended on full pay was more expensive than continuing to offer home births.

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Jimjams · 17/07/2004 18:20

Sounds like another NHS trust that doesn't provide maternity cover for any staff. That policy is causing chaos down here at the moment. And I have complained to my MP about it!

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coppertop · 17/07/2004 18:37

The staffing levels at the hospital are pretty dire. When I was induced with ds2 the hospital mw was literally dashing from one bed to the next. She'd been left on her own to cope with 4 inductions all happening at the same time, including one mother-to-be who didn't speak a word of English. The decision to suspend a mw for attending a home birth is absolute madness.

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edam · 17/07/2004 18:53

That's absolutely outrageous. Sadly the NHS is really good at suspending good people for political reasons and then leaving them dangling until they've lost their up-to-date knowledge of clinical practice and either retire or have to fight endless battles to get back before retraining. I know people who have been driven to the brink of suicide because they stuck up for patients. And you are right Senora, it costs an arm and a leg. One consultant was suspended for auditing the cervical screening service for which he was working and showing that it was so dire it was providing a level of false positives and false negatives that made it a. useless to patients and b. the worst in the country (but the guy at the top of the department preferred to lash out rather than solve the problem). Last I heard he was still suspended, three years on.

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pupuce · 17/07/2004 19:21

He said : " "The only way I could have tried to deny this woman a home birth would have been to mislead her about her rights, or to have intimidated her out of exercising those rights ? which I was not prepared to do."

Which is what many MW do..... mislead or intimidate... good on you mate ! I say....

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WideWebWitch · 17/07/2004 20:32

This is outrageous. Are AIMS or anyone taking up cudgels on his behalf? I hope so and will happily register my disgust publicly somewhere if there is anywhere other than here.

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Hulababy · 17/07/2004 20:36

Outrageous and utter madness. Hope he ges the support he needs.

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Paula71 · 17/07/2004 21:55

If they allow male ob/gyn doctors then why not midwives? This is ridiculous, yet another example of the pen-pushing managers running the hospital rather than the nursing staff, which is how it should be.

I would have absolutely no qualms in having a male midwife. The "powers that be" should consider that rather than just constantly stuffing things up!

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bran · 17/07/2004 22:34

Paula, he wasn't suspended for being a man , he was suspended for attending a home birth when his managers wanted all births to be in hospital.

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prettycandles · 18/07/2004 21:08

The fact that he is a man is utterly irrelevant in this case - so why does it keep being mentioned?

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coppertop · 21/08/2004 13:19

The midwife has now been sacked. What on earth are the NHS thinking????? They're so short-staffed apparently that they've had to cancel home births but decide to enforce it by sacking a midwife???????

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zebra · 21/08/2004 18:42

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kalex · 21/08/2004 18:47

That is disgusting.

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edam · 21/08/2004 19:36

I do hope he has a good lawyer and the Royal College of Midwives on his side....

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sobernow · 22/08/2004 07:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

moomina · 22/08/2004 07:43

So let's start a mumsnet campaign, then.

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sobernow · 22/08/2004 08:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

edam · 22/08/2004 08:42

Sounds good to me. We need to write to the chief exec and copy the head of midwifery. Absolutely outrageous!

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sobernow · 22/08/2004 09:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ZolaPola · 22/08/2004 10:06

the problem seems to be an acute shortage of staff (2 midwives required for home birth) , no justification for suspending the guy but there's no easy solution to the nationwide lack of nursing & midwifery staff, if this hospital couldn't get cover for the hols what were they meant to do jeopardise the care of many women & babies in hospital due to need to free up 2 midwives for 1 woman?? The pay is not great and the public is demanding, this story is much less simple than it first appears - I'm not supporting what they did but sounds like they had little choice due to staff shortage! if we were all willing to pay a little more tax to fund increased salaries to frontline staff and be more supportive of the health service maybe staff would stay longer and avoid such situations happening! BTW, NHS 'pen pushers' tend to be ex-nurses etc, the service has a budget of £60 billion a yr and rising - requires some managers to handle this!the UK has fewer managers than many other countries and they in many parts of the country are also leaving in droves due to be heartily p*ssed off at the public's lack of support - they tend to be well qualified and experienced and can always earn more in the private sector but are in the NHS because they want to do some good..

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ZolaPola · 22/08/2004 10:12

agree with Jimjams - more effective to complain to MP rather than the harassed NHS trust itself who are always having to firefight - this is a national issue that the gov should deal with and they should take responsibility for a change.

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sobernow · 22/08/2004 10:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

edam · 22/08/2004 10:24

Trust chief execs should be accountable for their actions. And recruitment. Most managers come via the graduate-recruitment management trainee scheme so they aren't mostly ex-nurses. Agree such a huge organisation needs managers but don't see why that would mean it is OK to lie to women about their legal rights. There is a recruitment problem with midwives, true, that's why sacking one is so outrageous. If they can get enough cover to do without him while he was suspended, and now sack him, they could clearly have covered this home birth. Plus home births are far less likely to end in caesareans, which take a whole team of staff. The trusts's behaviour in sacking a midwive is disgraceful and damaging to the women they serve. And I, for one, will be complaining.