Nurses & Midwives Talk was birth from a very painful place.
When 2020 was announced as the Year of The Nurse and Midwife, I was ecstatic! A whole year to celebrate our professions! Wow! I’m going to celebrate in style! I told myself! I applied to speak at numerous international conferences!
I started the year spending 6 weeks in The USA, the first leg of my Churchill Fellowship Travel Research investigating trauma-informed approaches to care.
The first weekend in March 2020, I spoke at the Commonwealth Midwifery Conference sharing what I had learned in the US.
By that time, it was clear that SARS-CoV2 was spreading like wildfire and many were getting ill from COVID19. I decided to heed the call to return to support colleagues working in The NHS.
A lot of my colleagues had been redeployed to work in hospitals. I took up a role a locum health visitor to support health visiting colleagues in North London. Within 2 weeks of working, I contracted COVID19 and was very unwell for 6 weeks. It was terrifying and I also lost my uncle to COVID19 at that same time. I recovered, but he didn’t.
Whilst recovering, I remember watching TV and all I saw were Intensive Care nurses. ICU nurses were doing a great job! But so were many other nurses and midwives. But no one was shining the spotlight on them and the difference they were making!
In that instant, I decided: If the media does not showcase our talent, I will.
And so Nurses Day last year, May 12 2020, I recorded a video and shared it on social media stating my vision to showcase 366 nurses and midwives in The Year of The Nurse and Midwife. Mission accomplished!
To date, I have interviewed 380 members of the nursing and midwifery family from over 30 countries across all the continents detailing the contribution they have made to the populations they serve during a very challenging pandemic.
And now you can join the Nurses and Midwives Talk and watch the interviews by clicking below
