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What do hotel chambermaids in Oban have in common with community midwives?
Caroline Flint discovered their unusual connection during a trip to Scotland
While I was on holiday in Scotland I met a community midwife in an hotel
in Oban. `Hello', I said, going up the stairs, `I'm Caroline Flint, midwifery
associate editor of Nursing Times.' I held out my hand and she shook it,
rather quizzically I thought, and then she said in an attractive Scots
burr, `How do you do Mrs Flint. I hope you have a lovely holiday', and
bustled off. No discussion on the state of midwifery in Scotland, no little
confidences - `I've got 15 postnatals to see today, must dash'. Nothing.
I thought this was strange and I wondered who was needing midwifery care
in this hotel. The average age of the residents seemed to be about 90,
but then there was always the staff. I carried on up the stairs.
When I came to our floor I turned along the corridor and - to and behold
- another community midwife. The mystery was solved; these must be district
nurses giving care to some of the elderly residents of the hotel. I greeted
the district nurse by asking her if she had many patients here. She looked
at me even more quizzically. `I'm one of the chambermaids Madam,' she
said. `Is there any way I can help you?'
Abashed and embarrassed I asked her, 'Where do you get your uniforms from?
You all look like community midwives.' `Och' (yes Scots people really
do say it) `people have said that before, we get our uniforms from Alexanders,
the uniform shop in town.'
Many of us have discarded our caps now that everyone from the waitresses
in motorway cafes to the female assistants in the bakery department at
Tesco were wearing nurses' caps, but the chambermaids of Oban really got
me thinking about what we wear.
What I wear also came under discussion a few days ago when I was discussing
a woman whose baby I delivered at home before the holiday. `Tell me Juliet',
I said. `Was there anything that I did that you weren't expecting or anything
that I should have warned you about beforehand?'. In other words we were
having an evaluation of my treatment towards her during labour.
`I wasn't expecting your delivery clothes', she said. It turned out that
towards the end of the first stage of labour I had said, `I'm going to
change into my delivery clothes now', and I had gone into the next room
to put on a clean T-shirt and dark track suit trousers, and a clean pair
of socks.
It turned out that she had expected a surgical cap and gown so that I
would be looking as if I was about to do open heart surgery. We had a
giggle about this, but it did make me think about uniform and the importance
of what we wear.
The Royal College of Nursing is determined to make us all feel that we
are `nurses'. Would they even feel remotely interested in annexing midwives
if we hadn't made the mistake of wearing the same clothes as nurses?
While I was in Scotland I drove past a hospital and someone in a white
top came out and got into her car. `Is she a nurse?' asked my husband.
`No, she's a physiotherapist', I answered. I knew because of what she
was wearing - something which was distinctive to her profession. As she
had trousers on it was also functional for the job that she has to do.
Are nurses' uniforms functional for midwives'? Are the skimpy skirts really
conducive to ease of movement when helping a woman who is squatting or
on all fours'? When we demonstrate the way a baby comes out, does the
assembled audience really want glimpses of intimate parts of the midwife
which no-one but her nearest and dearest should be privy to?
The freedom of wearing your own clothes is incredibly important in maintaining
professional responsibility. You are responsible for ensuring that they
are clean, decent and functional and that they look smart. Surely it is
much better for midwives to wear their own clothes - and if we need a
cover perhaps we could wear an overall?
A white coat perhaps? If this worries the medical secretaries, specimen
porters, greengrocers and doctors who all claim the white coat as their
own, how about a blue coat or a red coat, or a tabard?
A friend suggested that if we wear our own clothes we could be putting
a barrier between us and the women we care for. If we wear really good
clothes (on our salaries!)
we would create a barrier between ourself and poor women. At the moment
we loot messy and awful that we make everyone feel at home. Perhaps my
T-shirt and track: bottoms are the answer. For most of my w I wear a tracksuit/
leisure suit/ jogging and there is one I have that is in the m wives'
stewart blue - perhaps we could wear them? They are certainly more practical
cal than the silly dresses we are saddled w at the moment which have the
added disadvantage that we are mistaken for another profession.
Whatever we decide upon, as a me ber of an old and fine profession I want
look smart, I want to wear clothes that ; hygienic and functional and
I don't want be confused with a chambermaid in ON even though she was
very friendly and s did give me an extra sachet of shampoo don't want
to be confused with nurses eith although I admire and acknowledge thier
work and struggles. I belong to a professi which has an identity of its
own - it's tir we showed that in what we wear.
August 5, 1987
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