making the tea and keeping people happy

In the course of my PhD I have made many cups of tea. Tea, in fact, has been the key to the success of my fieldwork. On my very first day at Millside Hospital I wrote in my fieldnotes, with impressive foresight I think: 'That kettle and I are going to be good friends'; and so I was right, we would be.

What my making endless cups of tea symbolised was someone taking care of the midwives I was working with. Taking care of someone is emotionally and physically tiring; it is something that midwives do all shift, every shift and yet caring needs to be passed from one person to another like an endless circle of karma. You cannot care for someone unless you are cared for yourself. The surprise and delight of the midwives at my offers of 'tea, anyone?' was both sweet and sad; they didn't appear to be cared for in a way that enabled them to have the resources to care for others.

I don't think that the structure of supervision, unique and central to the midwifery profession, is enough. Yes statutory supervision was an astounding achievement for the fledgling profession in 1902; it has helped ensure the safety of women and babies; it has provided some kind of emotional support for midwives, but there is too much complacency. There is an assumption that midwives can cope with a job in which they are supporting vulnerable women in pain and often dealing with grief as well as happiness, without regular counselling or emotional support. Simply having a statutory annual supervision leaves them open to exhaustion and burn out. I'm not the first person to notice that.

Care of midwives is crucial to the future of the profession. Empowering midwives in order that they may empower women is crucial. Giving midwives the space to articulate their own concerns so that they can advocate for women is crucial. Tea is also nice. I didn't mean to be doing these things during my fieldwork, it was just that I had the time where no one else did. I sat and listened to their stories, I became a sounding board and counsellor, I made tea.

The difficulty now is managing the expectation that change might come from what I have done. That the 'evidence' that I write in a thesis can actually act as political leverage within the Trusts where I have spent time, in order that midwives might be better cared for. I hope so; but I don't feel I can promise. Perhaps the way will come afterwards. Perhaps I need to stick around: make a fuss, listen, speak, write and fight after this thesis is done. And perhaps I will.