warriors

I’ve been in hospital a little over three weeks now, and feeling well enough to explore the hospital a little I go on nightly walks up and down the corridors of this old old building, peeking in to the many long blue-curtained wards. Tonight it struck me how incredible all that is going around me is.

I see women pushing and panting and wincing as their children start their journeys in to life. Women nursing. Tired mums and bewildered dads trying to calm their screaming babies. Women curled around themselves having lost their babies. Women hoping and praying to hold on to their babies. Women walking in pain after c-sections and 72 hour labours. Women who have had their well-used wombs removed. Women hoping for children of their own, going through surgery to get there. Women who have nearly had their livers and kidneys collapse with pre-eclampsia, who have been gravely ill and had emergency c-sections to deliver 29 week old babies and whose only thought is of their little girl. And it struck me how damn strong all these women are. How brave. How warrior like.

And then I think of all those who have cared for me these last 24 days. Who have checked my pulse, my blood pressure, given me medication, looked in on me every hour at 3, 4, 5am, scanned me, reassured me, cared for me, held my hand, made me smile, changed my bed, washed my toilet, cleaned the floor I walk on, called in to me on their break, brought me food and tea and tea and tea and more tea. And they are

nearly all women. Warm, strong, hard working women who go home at 8am after a 12 hour shift to pack lunch boxes, put on washes, do homework with children of their own. Warrior women.

There is an exhibition in one of the atriums in the older part of the building recording the work and achievements of the Masters of the hospital since its founding in seventeen something. They have done great things, improving conditions for women and for nursing staff, improving hygiene, introducing chloroform, reducing maternal and infant mortality rates, paying midwives more. All of them committed and interesting men. But some how they appear detached. Their achievements are presented as statistics, reforms, changes in policy.

Down the hall there is another fascinating exhibition about the women of the Rotunda who have worked in the hospital over the years. And it struck me that theirs are the stories of really having been there. Of delivering babies while bullets flew up and down O’Connell Street during the Rising in 1916, of cycling the back roads of Galway singlehandedly delivering over 2,000 babies, of rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty. Warrior women.

Yes, there are lovely, kind, expert male consultants and doctors on the wards, I’ve been interviewed by the odd male med student, the master of the hospital gave me a curt 2 or 3 minutes one Sunday. But the heart of this hospital is a female one. Those who have cared for me and kept me safe and fed every hour of the day these last three weeks, they have been women. A workforce of warrior women caring for yet more strong and fearless women. To each and every one of you I say thank you and take a bow.