ÃÛÌÒAPP

Today (17 September) is world patient safety day and the focus this year is on safe maternal and newborn care.

Our maternity team at the RVI deliver over 6000 babies each year and the safety of mums and babies is our first priority. The team work with specialists across the Trust to make sure that those with complex needs receive care tailored to their needs.

Today, we’re highlighting some of the work that goes on across the Trust to support safe care for mums and babies.

In 2018 one of our community Midwives, Diane Buggy, created in response to the increasing amounts of help she was being asked to provide for vulnerable women in ÃÛÌÒAPP. This project has since expanded with the addition of more volunteers to help with donations and is now offering assistance in Gateshead and Northumberland areas.

Diane has been working in the community as a community midwife in the West End of ÃÛÌÒAPP since 2011. Aware of the inequalities some woman in the area faced and lack of access to the right resources, in particular the women who are refugees and asylum seekers, Diane began collecting basic equipment which a new mother might need for herself and her baby: baby clothes, baths and Moses baskets.

Diane realised the needs of these women far exceeded what she was able to offer. She began to use social media to source new donations and negotiated free storage for the donations in a community centre and through a self-storage company. Diane has also set up an Amazon wish list, which anyone can access and donate to.

Making use of her professional connections in the North East to help North East women, Diane would like to develop this into more of a social café, provide some bespoke antenatal education and to introduce more women to each other to help make connections and alleviate their isolation.

Diane was recently awarded a Gold Chief Midwifery Officer award for her exceptional work setting up Mothers to Mothers, she said: “For some women whose traumatic circumstances have led them to seek asylum, their circumstances can be centred in abject poverty: they have fed-back that they felt inadequate as a human being and a mother. The women feedback that it (Mothers to Mothers) makes them feel human again; that it helps them to feel the same as others. Some women are overwhelmed with the gift as they feel cared for.”