Mrs Matthews - early days as a midwife

Mrs Matthews - early days as a midwife

Public Health

An audio clip of Mrs Matthews recalling her early days as a midwife

EMOHA

EMOHA

You may use this item in accordance with the licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

English

1 min 51 sec

I left the City General to take my midwifery at the old Bond Street Hospital and I worked from there on the district. This was part of my training as a midwife. We had a a nurse with us until we passed our exams. We weren't allowed to actually do the work, we did the clearing up and looked after the patient and the baby. But the delivery itself, we weren't allowed to do until we passed our exam. But we had to see 20 cases and deliver 20 cases, and another 12 inside before we're allowed to sit our exam. And of course, it was mostly night work when we did our midwifery. It didn't matter whether it was night or day, if we were taking our cases, we had to be up, see, even in the night. And of course, they'd be getting the trams, the tram lines mended and everything, we had to put up with all the road work and we walked everywhere, and when we went to Caroline Street, which was my first case, the friend that was helping me, she said, ‘Oh, you must keep her an eye on the husband because we shan't find it otherwise’. There were only street lamps, you see, so we followed the husband and it was an 11th baby, but the children were disturbed because the mother had been so ill before we got there, and they were all looking on in the doorway. ‘Cause Dad had had to come and fetch the midwife, and there were no telephones and he had to fetch the doctor three times, cause my patient was very, very ill. And it was a big brass bedstead and we had to put the bed on kitchen chairs because she was hemorrhaging so badly, see, and Nurse was giving her injection, which wasn't a lot in those days - what they were allowed to give until the doctor arrived.

Ned Newitt

Mrs G Matthews

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