Call The Midwife – PBS Series
I’ve gotten hooked on a sweet Netflix series from the BBC, “Call the Midwife.” It’s set in the East End of London during the 1950s and 60s. Centered in a convent, the storyline features sisters and lay nurse midwives riding their bicycles to tend to the women in the community as they prepare for, and give birth to their babies, most often in their homes. There is one male doctor who makes house calls way more often than his patients visit him in his office. Friendships between the professional women who live together, and the blessings of the evening prayers of the sisters form a framework of love and spiritual dedication that underpins their system of hands-on health care.
Cycling in and throughout the birthing theme, the personal narratives of the
mothers’ lives connect to the emerging National Health Care System, to scientific
developments like the polio vaccine and drugs like penicillin, thalidomide, and The
(contraceptive) Pill. As the hospice movement was just starting in England at the
time covered by the series, we see the need and a bit of the solution it will provide.
And often, then as now, we see people falling through the cracks of governmental
and church-sponsored safety nets, and suffering from a lack of childcare and home
health care services for the elderly.
Recently, while watching the series I’d been staying in touch through text and phone calls with a family member caring for her dying mother in her home. This reminded me of how far we’ve come yet how little we have progressed. Western medicine has prolonged our lives, and provided remission for many diseases. But the behaviors necessary to support an elder loved one exiting life, like the behaviors to assist mothers in bringing their babies into life, are extensive, costly, and sometimes overwhelming to the family members providing it.
A friend whose daughter had recently had a baby talked proudly of being invited
onto the new family’s “care team,” friends and family member assisting the couple in caring for their newest member. I’d like to see us form care teams for families
assisting a loved one in departing life. In both situations arriving and departing, it
takes more than the immediate members of a single family. A care team to needed to provide a framework of mutual support, love, and spiritual dedication like midwives in the villages of old.
Do you have a care team? Might you need one?
Sheila
P.S. I will speaking at the upcoming Giving Care and Taking Care: A Dementia Caregiver Conference Hosted by Alzheimer’s Association- Greater PA Chapter on Nov. 19th if you know anyone who it would benefit.
