We're doing okay

[whitewriter]

ACT is closed to anyone from Greater Sydney
Victoria has shut its border to Sydney (but I assume that doesn't include the whole Albury Wodonga area - as that's regional NSW)
QLD has shut, anyone wanting to go back to QLD have another 2 hours until its shut shut.
SA As of midnight, anyone from Greater sydney going to SA will need to quarantine for 14 days
WA - hard border now reinstated
Tassie- cancelled the Sydney to Hobart Yatch race; and anyone from Greater Sydney needs to quarantine for 14 days
NT - same with the whole 14 day quarantine if your from Greater Sydney.

Case numbers to 8am today (21/12) was 15 new local cases
Yesterday (20/12) was 30 new local cases
19/12 was 20 new local cases
18/12 was 15 new local cases
17/12 was 3 new local cases

*remains 0 in ICU*

Dec 5 - we had 1 locally acquired case in NSW, 39 from overseas and 0 from interstate.


Our work christmas tea was cancelled, but communication wasn't great so we still had some cakes in the tea room for people to share.

I'm back to working with a mask on, changing it every 4 hours or if I happen to sneeze whilst wearing it then I use that as a good excuse to change the mask.

It's a pain, but... it's what we do.

I had a lady with gastro who came in -- she explained what sounded like an irritable uterus (contraction like pain post vomiting) but due to this, I had to invite her in (it can cause threatened premature labour or TPL so, thats serious at 31 weeks)

So she rocks up. -- and they supposedly checked her temperature at the door to the hospital and let her in --

and when I redo it, she's 38 degrees.

Blimey. (How did she get in the front door... those forehead thermometers are atrocious - why use them if they're unreliable?!)

Not symptomatic (no shivering or cold feeling) but with her heart rate up to 135, she saying she's scared to drink for the nausea, and the fetal heart also up in the 165 to 170 baseline range it was isolation room, IVC, fluids, arranging covid swabs (ED wanted to have her traipsing through the hallways to come down for a swab and I was thinking that's a silly idea... so we admitted her and called the big boss and they got someone to come down and swab her in her room. Much better idea.

I'm fairly sure its gastro.

Which is similarly contagious.

I did entertain the idea that if I did get gastro, I'd have a legitimate reason to stay home and not go to my split night shift that was arranged so I could "have christmas off"

This is why staff are haemorrhaging out of SSH: (well beside the other systemic issues and bad media compounding the stress)

This week this is my roster:

Sunday: 1430-2200
Monday: 1330-2200
Tuesday: 2130-0800
Wednesday: 2130-0800
Thursday (Christmas eve) - off but technically I don't finish til 0800
Friday (Christmas day) - off
Saturday (boxing day) : 2130-0800
Sunday (my last day) : 2130-0800

So.

We get two days off a week in an 8 hour set roster.
And so that's now my sleep day... (Christmas eve) and then sure. I get Christmas off,
but thats my real one and only day of being awake -- before I'm back to f-ing nightshift life.

Is it going to be worth the pain?!

Covid is here to ruin Christmas anyway, I pretty much almost wish I asked for a flat roster rather than asking for some hell just to have Christmas off.

I talked to a casual from another hospital, about why she left SSH and went elsewhere to work full time and just do 1x casual a week at SSH. She said that SSH is abnormally stressful and low on support for juniors.

Not to mention the abnormal partogram they use for intrapartum documentation.

She said, in her other hospital, management is much more relaxed. The place runs smoothly. And you basically get what you asked for in the roster. Swapping is not a problem (unlike SSH where no one seems to get what they want and swapping is a nightmare) and there's 12 hour shifts there too!

Amazing. The clientele are also much easier to deal with. Caucasians and Islander women.

Islander women ... are just ... born to have babies. They are... just ... so easy to deal with. The only thing is they're the most likely to be unbooked walk ins at unknown gestation (saying they didn't know they were pregnant) but other than that, they're a dream.

SSH is more of a just got here last year, can't speak english, paternalistic cultures dominating the scene with what feels like some sort of repressed... rape culture vibes (India and pakistan and the middle East I'm looking at you). Can be much harder to work with.

Maybe it's SSH that's got my panties in a twist these last few months than the actual profession of midwifery itself.


Yesterday when I was leaving SSH, I left when a woman was just birthing at 21:46 (I begged around and found a senior to give me a lift to the train station so I wouldn't have to walk 1.5 K in the dark which means I need to leave on time) -- and when I returned today I learned she had a 2.5l postpartum haemorrhage symptomatic and rightly so given the Hb drop to 60s = 2x blood transfusions- had a urethral tear (worst tear other than a 4th degree tear) where they used a powder made from potato starch (and was also featured on Grey's Anatomy apparently) to suture in OT -- and somehow, during the birth, she'd been pulling her knees back (just as we were instructing) and now she's got severe hip pain and can barely walk. She's on endone/paracetamol/voltaren/ and they added on targin.

She looks traumatised walking with 2x what looked like heavy assist this afternoon.

Some people just get all the bad luck.