Pros
Colleagues were some of the best, most other midwives on the ward kind, helpful and funny - makes your day more enjoyable under the immense workload
Cons
Extremely heavy workload and extremely poor staffing. See below for details. 1. Working on a ward you could be allocated anywhere from 6-13 patients, not including their babies. You would have to carry out daily assessments of babies, log notes in their charts and often administer medications - so why are they not included in patient load? 2. Senior management (ADOMs) will continue to book patients into the ward for admission when they know you do not have the staff to cope with them. Often, you have 3 midwives working on a day shift and 2 on a night shift. You would even dread the nights where you had 3 working, as you knew one of you would be “pulled” to another ward where you weren’t adequately trained and felt immensely underprepared, and your own ward would be left short again. You could tell them you felt unsafe until you’re blue in the face, nothing why can do. Delivery Suite is prioritized for staff which is fine, they need the most, but women and babies are not given adequate care on the ward because of staffing and things get missed. On busy nights or days, you will run around for 11-13 hours and still finish your shift feeling like you did an inadequate job. 3. If you fill out the INMO ‘blue book’ to report unsafe staffing or incidents, you will be absolutely ripped into by senior management saying you “should’ve came to them first”, when you’ve already reported the issue to them probably 3 times a day and not listened to. 4. You will receive multiple surgical admissions to the ward per day, with some patients not suitable for transfer. You can argue with the staff from theatre about bringing back unstable patients, they don’t care as they have a theatre list to do. Everyone is getting pushed from the top down, and everyone feels that pressure and takes it out on each other. You would be expected to deal with fresh surgical patients who may be unstable, along with potentially 2-5 discharges a day and all the paperwork that comes with it. You must do all this while managing your stable patients who aren’t going home, they still require meds, feeding reports, and may require 4 hourly assessments. Perform all your ad hoc duties too, like paperwork for every patient, liaise with ward manager, emergency trolley checks, answering call bells, answer phones, train students etc. Good luck. Lasted 1 year after qualification and left the profession because of experience in rotunda. Such a pity because if the staffing was ok, the experience would be really enjoyable. 5. Women are missing out on care from excellent midwives, myself included, because of the way the employer treats them. Pay is also extremely poor, in line with HSE. 6. Don’t expect any benefits from the rotunda. There is a waiting list years long for staff parking. You can expect to park in Parnell, which is dangerous and costly every day even after your “staff discount”. Staff have been assaulted before going to and from the car park. 7. The “subsidized” canteen is still very pricey for lunch. Food is lovely however you will be shifted out of the canteen if it’s after 2:30pm. No food available thereafter except the expensive patient shop. There is no second service of food like there is in other HSE hospitals. 8. There is no break room for staff in postnatal wards, only for staff in delivery suite. You can go to the “green room” at night when the canteen is closed, which is filthy at night time, and is located in the basement which is not pleasant. Sit in your car unless you’re afraid of being there by yourself at night.
