WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

Summary
This chapter reveals how coordinators feel, the multitasking they achieve, the roles they
play and their resilience which sustains them.
Coordinators use analogies to describe their experiences such as being the ‘pivot’, or
‘hub’, or ‘central figure’ in their workplace. They are central to the seen and unseen
happenings in the unit and their analogies reveal the Dasein or ‘being’ of their roles.
Coordinators are physically ‘on the move’ as they play their roles. This is not a ‘desk
job’, nor is it a job where staff necessarily know where to find the coordinator because
she is weaving through encounters, trying to lead a safe, well functioning unit from
wherever she happens to be within the unit. She is at the centre of the ‘happenings’ rather
than physically in a central physical location.
The analogy of puzzle solving was used by Sally. The delivery suite puzzle is not a jig
saw puzzle left on a table to complete at leisure. It is a real life puzzle in a unique world
of complexities which involve tertiary obstetric and midwifery evidence based care and
social interactions between colleagues, clients, families and friends. Everyone has their
own agendas and unique perspectives regarding safe care whether it be for mothers,
babies, whanau and/or staff in the unit. It is a puzzle which often has to be solved with
urgency with no guarantee all the pieces exist. With or without the pieces the
coordinator’s ‘puzzle’ always has to be solved, which in theory is impossible but in
practice requires compromise which will be revealed in Chapter Five.
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