As soon as we arrived in Grantham, K___ phoned the Supervisor of Midwives at the local Hospital.
Despite being a town of 40,000-ish, the local hospital is being steadily downgraded. The ante-natal unit has already been downgraded to a midwife-led service only. There are no pediatrician consultants based in Grantham at all. For anything other than the most straightforward births, women now have to go to Nottingham or Lincoln (roughly 26 & 27 miles away respectively).
The woman K___ spoke to was perfectly friendly and civil. I suppose we had thought there was a possibility of them being a bit grumpy after the slight hassle of getting them to agree to take K___ as a patient. The woman explained that one of the midwives would need to come out the following day and would phone before she set out.
The next morning, I had a few bits of last minute shopping to do - a few things for K___'s Christmas stocking (Santa deputised me), so I headed off into town, leaving K___ wondering whether she'd spend all day waiting for the call. In fact, I'd only just had time to buy a couple of small bits from Thorntons and bump into my brother and sister in law and kids in Woolies before K___ phoned to say the woman had been out to see her and gone already.
She had gone through K___'s notes, but didn't repeat any of the tests since they'd only been done the day before. Everything seemed fine and they would consider her a suitable candidate for a home birth. She did have one slightly down note to sound. There are only three midwives in Grantham (whether that just over Crimbo or generally wasn't clear). Thus, if there is already a birth going on at the hospital or a home birth in progress, you're buggered; it's off to Nottingham or Lincoln for you.
'Not likely,' said K___, 'If that happens, I'm going home.'
Despite being a town of 40,000-ish, the local hospital is being steadily downgraded. The ante-natal unit has already been downgraded to a midwife-led service only. There are no pediatrician consultants based in Grantham at all. For anything other than the most straightforward births, women now have to go to Nottingham or Lincoln (roughly 26 & 27 miles away respectively).
The woman K___ spoke to was perfectly friendly and civil. I suppose we had thought there was a possibility of them being a bit grumpy after the slight hassle of getting them to agree to take K___ as a patient. The woman explained that one of the midwives would need to come out the following day and would phone before she set out.
The next morning, I had a few bits of last minute shopping to do - a few things for K___'s Christmas stocking (Santa deputised me), so I headed off into town, leaving K___ wondering whether she'd spend all day waiting for the call. In fact, I'd only just had time to buy a couple of small bits from Thorntons and bump into my brother and sister in law and kids in Woolies before K___ phoned to say the woman had been out to see her and gone already.
She had gone through K___'s notes, but didn't repeat any of the tests since they'd only been done the day before. Everything seemed fine and they would consider her a suitable candidate for a home birth. She did have one slightly down note to sound. There are only three midwives in Grantham (whether that just over Crimbo or generally wasn't clear). Thus, if there is already a birth going on at the hospital or a home birth in progress, you're buggered; it's off to Nottingham or Lincoln for you.
'Not likely,' said K___, 'If that happens, I'm going home.'
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