WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

care and used her knowledge to place the right midwife with the right woman according
to that midwife’s skill base for provision of safe care.
Sally reveals that sometimes there will be situations where she knows a particular woman
may be at the lowest level of risk in the unit, still has a risk level but there are no
midwives left to care for her. She can only work with the number of staff who are on duty
at that time and the finality of her words ‘that’s just the way it is’ offers her reality and
acceptance that she does her best and this is as good as it gets.
It was unseen events or what Heidegger (1927/1963) describes as the ‘hidden darkness’
which were suddenly revealed and completely changed the dynamics of delivery suite in
an instant in this story. Smythe (2000) alludes to this when she writes “so much of the
knowing that could inform practice lies in the darkness” (p.18). It was only at the point
when the emergency revealed itself with inadequate staffing numbers that Sally could
truly know whether or not all mothers and their babies in the unit could be kept safe. It
was how she responded to the emergency which was critical to everything that was
happening in the unit at that time.
Heidegger (1927/1962) use of the analogy to ‘leap in’ as a form of concern when a
person takes over and manages a situation is exactly what Sally did. She instinctively
‘leapt in’ with no forewarning and managed the situation because she knew what to do.
Her knowledge was within her, ready to be utilized; she knew the staff she was working
with, she knew their skill mix, she was familiar with the delivery suite systems, she knew
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