Just having a moan...

[lisamct]

Just having a moan really. As a few of you might know Im about to qualify as a midwife (12 shifts to go till I finish!) and Im facing the very serious prospect of having no job to go to.

The shortage of midwives is all over the news these days but in reality there's no shortage of midwives just a shortage of jobs for them to work in. There are probably hundreds of people qualifying from uni's all over the country who are unable to get posts when they finish. I know of people who qualified anything up to 2 years ago who have been unable to get a NQ post. There are 26 of us from my uni qualifying in a few weeks and almost the same amount again from the next nearest uni (less than 15 miles away) who will all be scrabbling for the same non-existant jobs.

So, this is the reality of the situation for NQ midwives where I am. I have an interview for a post next week...in Belfast. Although I cant move (OH runs his own business and cant relocate at present) they will hopefully allow me to commute by giving me all my shifts for 2 weeks in a row (so basically 7 long days on, 8 days off which may actually kill me!) This means I would need to rent somewhere full time in Belfast for the days that Im there and fly back and forth to Glasgow once a fortnight. This is going to cost me @£600/month which means I'm going to be coming home with the same money, if not less, than I am now as a student. I have also applied for both of the jobs available in the whole of Scotland at present, one unit is a 2 hour commute from home and the other, although only 30 mins away has already attracted the attention of the whole of my cohort, the cohort of students who will be qualifying from the uni that uses that unit as a training site and all the girls who qualified last Sept who are still without jobs a year later.

I knew when I started this course that the job situation wasnt rosey for NQ midwives but the reality is still hard to take. Its especially difficult when I go on placement every day to see how short staffed the units are (26 postnatal women to 2 midwives) but there's just no money to employ anyone else and its not only the midwives but, more importantly the women and their families that are suffering for it. Its just so depressing and makes me wonder why I bothered. I love midwifery, I love being with women at one of the most important times of their lives and I love being able to hopefully help to make it the experience they wished for but, right now, its totally soul destroying and I feel that I might be best just to walk away and try to forget I ever did it.

[XB9S, BSN, MSN, EdD, RN, APN]

I'm not sure really what I can say, I am so sorry that after all of your hard work and studying you are faced with the prospect of either no job or a job so far away it is hardly worth working.

When I qualified as a nurse in the 80's I was out of work for 6 months and it picked up again after that, there is a national recognition about the shortage of midwives and it has been in the news recently so fingers crossed this is where the government will push the funds to improve things.