Remote Canadian locations and Nursing in Canada

Here in the eastern north of Canada, things are truly remote. My sister's have lived in the Yukon for many years. When I had a chance to visit with one of them recently she described her ideal world...'You will come back in late Spring so I can fly in, rent a car and drive through the province, making a month or two exploration.' A few days prior I was making inquiries because my niece considered driving up to visit me, so I relayed what I'd learned to my sister.

The first 130 km of road is pretty rough, but then it gets pretty good. At P. you go to the hotel to pick up a satelite phone because there is nothing between there and H. (about 4 hours drive). It's locked so you can only call emergency numbers but if you get into trouble it's all you have. When you arrive in H. you drop it off at one of the hotels there. This whole trip took (my informant said) just over 12 hours after (a certain point).

My sister's comment: People think the Yukon is remote!

Of course, except for looking out the window of the plane, I have seen little of this. Most of my time has been working. We work 12 hour shifts with one midwife or obstetric nurse. The difference is that the ob nurse is shown how to catch a baby in the event no one else is available but is not allowed to be the primary attendant at a birth. Midwives here are the primary carers for women who do not have a regular GP, which includes the women who live in small communities and come to town for the birth of the baby. There is always a GP at every birth since they are the ones who generally receive, assess and admit the baby.

It's so different from my Australian workplace where well babies are cared for by the midwives after birth. If they are sick the paediatrician called. GP's only come to their own patient's delivery. There is no doctor who admits the baby to the hospital. They are admitted by being born and only if sick do they require the paediatrician to admit them to neonatal intensive care.

There are things I'd forgotten about nursing in Canada, like transcribing doctor's orders. While I was agast at first, I can now see some advantages. Just as junior doctors write the orders for the senior consulting doctor and learn in so doing, nurses also can learn by the action of transcribing. It does require the same thoughtful consideration of what one is doing to avoid making mistakes with medications. And an ability to decipher doctor's handwriting. They get around this by having all standing orders printed; the desired page is signed by the doctor and put into the patient's chart.

But now to go home and study for the course exam tomorrow afternoon... Sorry there's no pictures, I haven't gotten camera and cable and computer in the same room at one time!
Susan

THANKS

After 45 hours travel (including an overnight enroute, I arrived. For the first two nights in Canada, I was awake at 1 or 2 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. Last night I slept well for about 8 hours, waking early but not earlier than I sometimes do at home. It was a great first day on the ward with a lovely birth to a first time mother. She laboured well. Got a bank account so I can be paid. Found public access computers at tha local college nearby to my apartment so I can stop using someone else's login and catch up this blog. After being told I was needed to work the days of a course I'd understood I'd been accepted for, the manager was changing the roster today for me and another midwife to be able to attend. What graciousness. I've been given a ticket to travel to see my sister when I have a few days off and it doesn't conflict with the changes to the roster! So many things are coming together all at once...I have a great deal to be thankful for!

Outward Bound

From the plane, the land around my city is green and lush. Every river, stream, dam and hollow is full of water. This is such a contrast tot he usual yellow grass when the watercourses are dry.

An hour later we are flying over Sydney. Its colours aare green and red: leafy green trees line both sides of most residential areas, the red is clay roof tiles. In contrast to twenty-five years ago, a silvery-grey rectangle adjoins the red. Surely these are house extensions into the back yard. Having lived in one of these houses, I wonder if it is the desire for a family room/indoor play space where in earlier generations children played outdoors. That is certainly what my M-i-L told her grands.

A friend was on the plane with an empty seat beside him so we took the chance to catch up. He's a minister and on the board of a local private school that recently hired an executive principal. The church we attend is looking for a minister so we chatted about approaches to interviewing in schools that could be useful to church hiring which is termed 'calling'. In the interview, they gave 10 minutes to prepare a response to a scenario. This gave insight into the candidate's thinking and approach to challenges. When applicants identified areas they would have to grow into, they asked about mentors, books and the like that would be used to support this time of learning. At hiring, a memorandum of understanding was drawn up to guide both the principal's wife and the school with respect to her volunter role at the school. These were new to me until we created one with our missionary earlier this year.

Waiting in Sydney I remembered a lesson I learned on a journey 8 years ago, to pray for the organization of my seating. I did so, even while thinking, 'the seats have already been assigned.' (ie what's the point?). Boarding, I noticed empty seats and saw the seats either side of mine occupied. I headed straight for a steward to ask for another seat. After a couple of suggestions that were vacant of their occupant, I ended up separated by one seat from a Canadian mother with her 4 month old baby heading home to see her family. It was a rather fun match for a Canadian midwife who also had her children in Australia and took them home for introductions. And I only sat in my assigned seat once for half a rather short leg!
(Written October 25th)

Opening the Door

Friday night 10 PM I heard that they had a ticket booking and wanted me to come on Monday morning. Once I packed in about half an hour for an overseas trip that I ended up not going on. It was only going to be a week, so was much less complex. Thankfully lots got done in the last fortnight but there's always more one can do. Now the bags are packed: work clothes and nursing things, ordinary clothes, outdoor clothes for a remote area, presents for family (Christmas is coming), paperwork for travel and for midwifery, a few unfinished creative projects and a teddy bear I gave my hubby when he left us for a four month period overseas. :)

Today, the rain kept me from walking down to the lagoon to have a look at how it's changed since my last walk down. The picture heading the blog was taken that day, about a month ago now. In the past three years, it has usually looked more like the picture above, but with even less water.

For a brief period chatting after church, I actually felt excited! The details of organization have crowded it out. Once on the plane at 6:30 tomorrow, I'm sure it will start to sink in. A friend who is married to a Canadian and lived there for a while asked me to bring back a piece of labradorite! We have carried rocks back in the past. Once we brought a big piece of granite for a certain four year old who later lost it on the school bus. :(

Midnight Choices

The telephone rang at half past midnight on Monday. It was the HR person wanting to catch up on where things were up to. In my sleepy stupor, I mentioned that we'd had a new person come on staff and said I would check if that made any change to the situation regarding my availability. It didn't. Was that a mistake? Probably not because I was sick as a dog on Tuesday and still recovering Wed and Thurs. I think I'm better now.

All the same, I took the phone off the hook last night so we could all get a good night's sleep. On Monday I ended up awake until 3 AM! This morning an email asked, "Any new developments? I tried to call but your line was busy" Hmmm, I did send an email on Tuesday about that; I re-sent it. At ten minutes past knock off time for her - early morning for me - I said, "She's not going to call." Minutes later, the phone rang. "Can you come this weekend?" "Er, (pause) it will be more expensive on the weekend." I know because I've been reserving seats from this end. She's going to check out Monday flights and we will talk tonight.

Yesterday, I made some inquiries and remembered about a course on Tuesday that I intended to take if I was still here. Have asked if there are places. I did learn that I could have some work about five hours away during November. Perhaps this adventure needs to wait until the new year. Decisions today...

In my recovery lethargy yesterday, I thought I heard a car and then the ride-on mower. In fact, it was a truck delivering four young steers! They're brown-black (Angus?) and now hiding on the far side of the dam in the east paddock.

Dealing With Hope Fatigue

Whenever we hang on for a long time waiting for something we'd like to see happen, there comes a point of hope fatigue. 'I've done all I can. Why shouldn't it happen now? It isn't fair!'

That's how I'm feeling today. After a few days of looking every morning to see if I have a reply email and finding nothing, I'm weary of the dashed hopes. Reading through the Psalms, as I've done sporadically in recent weeks, I'm reminded of the current theme I've found in them - life is full of ups and downs. David said in what I read this morning, "weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning". Today's doldrums will pass.

For the moment I simply need to find a way out of them. It's probably a great time to put on the TV and learn about the progress overnight in bringing the Chilean miners to the surface. I haven't waited 69 days yet!

Still in Limbo

I've been telling friends here who know my plans that I will know by Wednesday morning. That's now and I have received verification of my registration last night - I'm dealing with the other side of the world - but the HR person is on a business trip. I've emailed her to let her know that I have licensure but she hasn't answered. It's late evening now for her, but midday for me. That means another day of waiting.

I've felt as though I'm underwater, coming up for a breath from time to time. Each time I check, I'm hoping I will find out that I can move forward definitely. Each time I learn that something else needs to be obtained, I grab another breath and dive under. At the end of last week, I was told that the Australia papers had been sent. When they weren't received on Friday, it was too late here to follow up again until Monday. They were sitting in a pile waiting to be signed off. Done? Guess it depends on your definition.

Yesterday I pruned out the dead canes on the berries and got them up off the ground. Now they won't be pruned every time the area is mowed. Today I finished making some mint jelly with the early mint from the garden. We had no power yesterday so after gardening I headed into town to attend to errands there. I'm sure that even with this attitude I am trying to have of proceeding as if this is going to happen and continuing to prepare, I will find myself with things undone.

For the moment, I have another twelve hours in limbo!