Heartbeat: Putting patients first for 30 years – Bernie’s journey
May 30, 2019
Bernadette Hickling, Midwifery Team Manager will be retiring from the Trust after putting patients first in our maternity wards for over 30 years.
Bernie started working with the Trust back in 1983 as a staff nurse for a year on the rehabilitation ward on sheldon block for 6 months. She then spent another 6 months on the Isolation ward on D12
Bernadette would leave the organisation in 1984 to train as a midwife at Birmingham Maternity Hospital. She would then return to the Trust in 1989 and has been here since.
For 24 years, Bernie worked as a community midwife and then a community midwife manager for the Trust covering area such as Great Barr, Kingstanding, Lozells and Aston.
From 2013, Bernie then moved to the antenatal clinic at City Hospital.
There are multiple obstacles a midwife faces whilst working at the Trust. With the region where our hospital site is based having such a diverse population with people from a variety of different backgrounds and ethnicities, this can be bring many challenges.
Bernie has faced many of these challenges and said: “We now see a lot more non-English speaking pregnant mothers who have just arrived in the UK. They’re full term and need urgent scans and management plans. In addition added challenges are now seeing maternity patients with much more complex co morbidities.”
“Also due to the current worldwide unstable political situation we see the impact of this in our maternity Trust. We now see more vulnerable pregnant women from war torn countries with horrific experiences of rape and torture as well as seeing more trafficked pregnant women who have had female genital mutilation.”
She added: “Fortunately for us, our maternity unit offers good practice as we now have more specialist midwives and clinics to meet the needs of our complex population.”
With those barriers come triumphs, where in 2013, Princess Ann visited the maternity unit and strongly praised all the colleagues on ward for their dedication, including Bernie.
Louise Thompson, Infant Feeding Coordinator has worked alongside Bernie for many years and is full of praise for her fellow colleague.
She said: “It has been brilliant working with Bernie because she genuinely cares for staff and patients as she is always kind and calm. She has done such a lot to support infant feeding our antenatal clinic and this has made a real difference to some of the most vulnerable infants.”
Bernie plans to wind down when she retires as she will have more time to go on holidays with her friends and family as well as her two Border Collie dogs, Kira and Alfie.