I’ve been a midwife for the past 12 years. When I began my training at the age of 18, our tiny cohort of 30 midwives was more like a family than it was a class. We had lectures alongside nurses in our first year of university, and there is a communal sense of understanding among healthcare workers.
It’s like we “get it”, without needing to utter a single word. The feeling is so strong I’ve had a gut sense I’ve been sat across from another healthcare worker on the tube before, where a spilt bag and an ID badge spilling onto the carriage floor has confirmed my suspicions.
That’s not just for nurses and midwives – it stretches its hand towards doctors, dentists, physiotherapists, healthcare assistants and other medical personnel too.
Labour ward midwives have a close working relationship with the neonatal unit, as they take over from us once we’ve assisted in the delivery of the preterm and sick babies who need ongoing care and attention. I’ve helped to transfer babies on numerous occasions, rolling them down the corridor in an incubator and through the door attaching delivery suite to the neonatal intensive care department.
Midwifery isn’t a job where you can just close your laptop at the end of the day and forget about it until tomorrow. It’s a vocation. Often, we call up the unit after hours to check in on our patients’ wellbeing, and I’ve continued to visit parents and their babies on subsequent shifts.
It’s the most glorious thing when you catch two parents finally bringing in the car seat after having spent months going back and forth from home to the hospital to visit their preterm baby. Finally – it’s home time.
I was at work when I first heard about Lucy Letby’s trial, and I immediately felt a bit sick. I’ve never known or worked alongside her, but the thought of anyone knowingly harming a patient under their care just goes completely against the care and compassion that, I believe, drives people to become healthcare workers in the first place. It’s completely against everything that I know, and that I’ve experienced, in my working life.
Unwanted outcomes happen from time to time – childbirth can be unpredictable – and I’ve seen the emotional repercussions. Fellow colleagues have absolutely crumbled from their experiences. It’s terrifying, and I’m sure many nurses and midwives carry around a certain level of PTSD from situations they’ve witnessed over their careers.
Hospitals try their best to protect against similar events from happening again, and rigorous clinical governance processes run through the lifeline of all medical trusts. At the end of the day, hospitals don’t want to be “failing”. No-one wants to be doing a bad job.
We’ve certainly felt the repercussions of working through a global pandemic and experienced extremely challenging working conditions of late – but I’ve never known a single colleague to go to court after having caused deliberate harm. People walk with their feet if they’ve had enough of it all – they don’t turn into serial killers.
On Friday 18 August, the video of Lucy Letby being arrested from July 2018 was released into the public domain, and I happened to catch the news with my colleagues. We were all shocked. She looks just like any other nurse or colleague we’ve worked alongside. The photos of her out with friends across the broadcasting news networks – just ordinary.
The emotional ripples from this case will be a pandemic in itself. I had to turn off the news last night, because it all just feels a little too close to home. I totally understand live news outlets will – accidentally I’m sure – pass the odd sweeping generalisation, but I really hope that the nursing and midwifery profession won’t all be tarnished as a result of this. It’s heartbreaking to even contemplate.
The shockwaves will come, though – and they need to come. I feel for the families whose lives have been affected, and the other healthcare professionals from the Countess of Chester Hospital who would have gone through the ringer throughout the last five to eight years.
Imagine being a nurse or medic on the unit at the time, perhaps also having been suspected by others as being a killer? Or having to testify against a former friend and/or colleague? My heart goes out to them all.
These cases might well be rare, but this cannot be allowed to ever happen again.
Lizzie Romain is a practising midwife on the NMC register
