A hospital team saved a woman from bleeding to death after she developed a rare complication weeks before she was due to give birth to her baby girl.

Mother-of-two Sammy-Jo Medcalf, 28, was told she had placenta accreta, a condition affecting fewer than two pregnant women in every 10,000 including reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

Now, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has produced a video of the highly skilled team of interventional radiologists, obstetricians, surgeons, paediatricians, anaesthetists, theatre nurses, midwives and operating department practitioners working together to save Sammy Jo and her baby daughter Indi.

Sammy-Jo said: “You never expect this to happen to you. I’d never even heard of it. But if it had to happen to me, I’m really lucky that I live in Hull.

“I’m just so grateful to the team. They were brilliant.”

Vivek Shrivastava, Consultant in Interventional Radiology, said: “The video shows how Hull is leading the field in multi-disciplinary team working for complex surgeries like Sammy-Jo’s.

“Other large teaching hospitals can do this procedure but what makes Hull unique is how we work together as a team, with the mother and baby remaining our focus.

“As well as having the experience and skills, we have all the correct equipment and facilities in place in a surgical environment which supports and enables collaborative working.

“Each member of the team plays their role and then step back to allow others to do their work. We may not know each other before the procedure but support each other throughout the process.”

Sammy-Jo and Luke with George and Indi

Samantha and husband Luke, 27, who also have a two-year-old son George, learned she had placenta praevia at their 20-week scan, where the placenta covers all or part of the entrance to the womb. In 90 per cent of cases, the placenta, providing vital nutrients and oxygen to the baby, moves upwards as the womb grows.

A further scan at 31 weeks showed Sammy had developed placenta accreta, formerly known as morbidly adherent placenta and a life-threatening complication of pregnancy where the placenta became embedded deep in the wall of the womb. Women with the condition risk bleeding to death once their babies are born and often require hysterectomies to save their lives.

Consultant Dr Uma Rajesh explained to the couple their baby would be delivered by caesarean section before Sammy-Jo underwent surgery to stop major blood loss.

Surgery was planned for March 21 in the Interventional Radiology Theatre Suite on Level 2 of Hull Royal Infirmary when Sammy-Jo was 36 weeks and three days into her pregnancy.

The 25-strong team was assembled and briefed, with the interventional radiologists working first to ensure Sammy-Jo would be safe once her baby was born.

Dr Shrivastava said: “People talk about keyhole surgery but this was more like pinhole surgery.

“We used wires and fine catheters, some of which were no more than 0.8 millimetres in width, to insert occlusion balloons into her pelvic arteries. We then injected a special foam to block the arteries. Her baby was still in her womb so we had to use minimal screening and no x-ray.

“The interventional radiology team of six consultants, 20 nurses and six radiographers perform 1,500 complex pinhole surgeries a year so this is something we are accustomed to, although we only see this condition around two or three times a year.”

Once the interventional radiologists had carried out their preparatory work, obstetrician Dr Uma Rajesh carried out the caesarean section. Indi was handed over to paediatricians and neonatal nurses before being taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Luke, who was waiting outside while his wife was in surgery, accompanied his newborn daughter to NICU while Sammy-Jo’s mother texted regular updates after regular briefings from hospital staff.

Sammy-Jo lost two litres of blood after Indi was born but, thanks to the skill of the interventional radiologists, she did not require a hysterectomy as the balloons and the foam had stopped the bleeding. Her arteries were then sealed by tiny plugs which are absorbed by the body within weeks.

Sammy-Jo said: “I had been told to expect a lot of health professionals in the operating theatre and they were just amazing, explaining everything to me at every step of the way.”

Taken to Intensive Care to recover, Sammy-Jo was finally able to hold her daughter for the first time around seven hours after she was born when she was wheeled to NICU. Mother and daughter were fully reunited in the hospital’s transitional care ward when Indi was three days old.

Recovering at home in Kingswood with Indi, now six weeks old, Sammy-Jo said: “I was really frightened and it was a bit overwhelming but there’s nothing else for it. I knew this was the only way Indi was going to come out and I just had to be brave and get on with it.”

Free event for local businesses held in support of Dying Matters Awareness Week

Whether you’re a colleague, a manager or a business owner, bereavement in the workplace is always a tricky subject; what do you say? What should you do? And how do you make sure your staff feel supported at the same time as keeping the wheels of business turning?

As part of Dying Matters Awareness Week, local experts in this field will hold a special event for employers of all sizes on Tuesday 14^th May.

According to the bereavement charity, Cruse, one in ten people in the UK is thought to be affected by bereavement at any given time. Whilst most bereaved people will cope reasonably well at work, others struggle to deal with their loss, and this can impact on both productivity and relationships with co-workers.  Knowing how to approach a colleague who’s dealing with grief, what to say to them, and how to balance their needs with those of the workplace can be fraught with difficulty.

To help local employers support all of their staff with this most delicate of subjects, the Bereavement Team at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is joining with Cruse Bereavement Care, Macmillan Cancer Support and Dove House Hospice, to host ‘At a Loss for Words’, a dedicated breakfast seminar for businesses on Tuesday 14^th May.

Sponsored by Macmillan, the event is free to attend and will take place at the Willerby Manor Hotel. Delegates will be able to hear first-hand experiences of managing bereavement from employers and employees, attend workshops, put questions to the expert panel, and receive a bereavement resource pack to take away and use in the workplace. Speakers include John Creasey from Dove House Hospice, who will help delegates to better understand bereavement, and Lizzie Jordan, a mother, widow and award-winning social entrepreneur who will provide a first-hand account of working life after bereavement.

Janis Hostad is a Lecturer and Education and Development Coordinator based at the Queen’s Centre in Cottingham, and will be among those presenting on the day. She says:

“Everyone will be affected by bereavement at some stage. Loss and grief can be difficult enough for people to speak about with their loved ones, but for employers, who understandably have to have one eye on their needs of their business, staff bereavement can pose extra challenges.

“Our special breakfast seminar will offer local employers the chance to hear from experts and ask questions which they may previously have been worried about asking. From compassionate leave and sources of bereavement support, right through to  understanding the  employee’s ongoing needs as they  return to work, our experts will give an insight into how best to deal with bereavement in the interests of the employee, co-workers, and the business as a whole.”

The breakfast seminar is suitable for employers of any size who would like assistance with bereavement issues, and is being held to coincide with national Dying Matters Awareness Week, 13^th – 19^th May 2019.

Janis continues:

“Loss and bereavement can be devastating, and people can find it very awkward just knowing what to say to someone who has lost a loved one, so many people avoid talking about these issues. It can be particularly difficult to know how best to help bereaved people at work.

“By offering appropriate support to bereaved staff and colleagues, we not only help them, but our workplace and our business too.”

‘At a Loss for Words’ will take place on the morning of Tuesday 14^th May at the Willerby Manor Hotel, Carr Lane, Willerby.

For more information, contact Sandra Kelly on 01482 461260 or email sandra.kelly@hey.nhs.uk

For Carol Rushton, one of the longest serving nurses at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, the best part of her job is not knowing what’s about to come through the door.

Carol, a senior perioperative practitioner, works nights in the theatres at Hull Royal Infirmary. Before midnight, she helps care for patients requiring routine surgery from needing their appendix removed to back surgery and the repair of perforated bowels.

But, after midnight, only people facing “life or limb-threatening emergencies” are brought to theatre for life-saving surgery after accidents or attacks, major traumatic events or for surgery to save their arms or legs.

“I love not knowing what we’re going to get coming in,” said Carol, 61. “The one thing we do say is when it’s a bank holiday or a full moon, tighten your seat belts.”

To mark International Nurses Day on May 12, celebrated around the world every year to mark the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is shining a spotlight on some of its nurses.

This year also marks the 100^th anniversary of the Nurses Registration Act, created in 1919 to establish a register of nurses and setting up the General Nursing Council.

Carol has clocked up almost 45 years’ service, beginning her career back in 1974.

She grew up on Hessle Road before moving to Willerby with her family in 1967. Although she wanted to work in banking, her maths wasn’t strong so she decided to follow a friend who had started pre-nursing training in 1974 at the age of 16.

Known as Daffodil or Buttercup nurses because of their bright yellow uniforms, they spent half of the week at Hull College and the other half working in hospitals including Hull Royal, Princess Royal and De La Pole Hospital.

Carol started her official nurse training in 1976, working in neurosurgery when she qualified as a State Registered Nurse in 1979. The following year, she married husband Paul, an ambulance man who went on to become one of the first fully qualified paramedics in 1989, and they had two children.

Keen to broaden her nursing skills, Carol worked in infectious diseases and with elderly medical patients in the 1980s but realised her heart lay in surgical nursing.

“I missed the bustle of surgery and looking after patients who perhaps needed more intensive nursing after surgery but jobs were hard to come by in the 1980s,” she said.

Hull Royal was looking for theatre staff so Carol seized the opportunity and spoke to the nursing officers who arranged for her to start in November 1981. She’s been there ever since, apart from a brief time in the mid-80s when she worked in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Each night shift, she co-ordinates the workload for Hull Royal Infirmary, ensuring each theatre has the right staff and the right mix of skills. Carol and the team look after patients before their operations, during surgery and in the initial recovery period before they are moved into ICU or back onto a ward.

Because of the nature of the job, there are some patients who don’t make it. Carol uses her experience to support more junior members of the team so they can be ready for the next patient arriving at hospital with a life-threatening emergency.

“I try to help people after they’ve seen things they might not be used to seeing or have ever experienced,” she said. “When you’re in charge of running theatres, you do get a lot of junior staff coming through so it’s important to support them.

“I always try to advise people to leave work at work, to go back to their families and be with them but it can and does still affect me.

“There will always be the cases that stick in your mind, the people that died when you weren’t expecting them to or the ones that experience unforeseen complications.

“You always remember them, you learn from them but we have to move on.”

There have been many high points in a career spanning five decades. But with a desire to support organ donation and having worked with transplant teams over the years, being asked to be part of the scrub team in the operating theatre with renowned transplant surgeon Professor Giles Toogood ranks high on her list.

She said: “He came to us to retrieve organs from a patient for transplant surgery and used to bring his own scrub team but, this time, something happened and I got to scrub in with him. I had never seen anything like that before.

“I’ve worked with some fantastic people over the years and I couldn’t do my job without the support of every member of the theatre team.”

It’s a tough job, full of pressure and requiring all of Carol’s experience and nursing skills but she wouldn’t swap it for the world.

“I don’t see myself as some kind of Florence Nightingale with my lamp,” she said. “I just think nursing is who I am and I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

When you ask what she loves most about her job, Helen Tointon, a paediatric specialist nurse looking after children with respiratory problems, doesn’t hesitate.

“Patients, families and my colleagues,” she says.

It’s plain to see Helen still feels passionate about her job and her patients after starting her career at a time when the UK first entered the European Economic Community, an Elvis Presley concert in Hawaii was watched by more people than those who watched the moon landings and Hull’s trawlers were engaged in the Cod Wars with Iceland.

Starting her career in 1973, Helen is one of the longest-serving nurses working for Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust as the organisation prepares to mark International Nurses Day on May 12, the anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale.

This year also marks 100 years since the creation of the Nurses Registration Act in 1919 which set up the General Nursing Council and established training standards of nurses.

Trust archivist Mike Pearson will be exhibiting documents, photographs and artefacts to chart Hull’s nursing history outside Kingston Restaurant at Hull Royal on Friday.

Helen started her pupil training as a State Enrolled Nurse in 1975 after two years in nurses’ residence as a Buttercup cadet nurse.

She qualified in 1977 and spent five years on Ward 4 at Hull Royal looking after men with traumatic orthopaedic injuries. From there, she moved into children’s nursing spending her first two years on night shift before transferring to day duties.

She is married and brought up her three sons, at one time all three of them under five, while holding down her job.

In 1996, her nursing officer encouraged all enrolled nurses in the paediatric nursing team to study to become a registered children’s nurse and she qualified in 1998.

But she knew academia was a way to build up her knowledge so embarked on a series of training modules and qualifications to enhance her skills in paediatric nursing.

She helped to develop an acute pathway for children admitted to hospital with asthma and between 2009 and 2018, she split her time between her hospital nursing job and her advanced learning at the University of Hull, obtaining a degree first then going on to secure a Masters in Leadership in Health and Social Care.

“I didn’t know what to do with myself when I finally finished last year,” she said. “I’ve done all the painting at home because I was at a loss to fill my time.”

At work, Helen runs three nurse-led clinics a week, seeing youngsters with respiratory problems in children’s outpatients at Hull Women and Children’s Hospital. She also takes part in multi-disciplinary team clinics once a week.

Although she splits her time between Women and Children’s and Hull Royal, she’s based herself on the top floor of the tower block to be close to medical and nursing staff dealing with admissions, able to liaise and assess treatment plans for patients.

Helen said: “Everyone always asks me when I am retiring but I’m not thinking about that yet.

“I’m always learning things. I have never got to the point where I think I know it all.

“Every day, I come away and think I need to do some reflection on that or I could have approached something better. I never come away where I think I’ve got nothing more to learn.”

They are the patients who thought they had run out of options to tackle their breathlessness, chest pain, fainting and dizziness.

But now, patients with heart disease are being offered the chance of improved health and a better quality of life at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

The trust has become the third centre in Yorkshire and the Humber to perform Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) for patients who were previously considered too frail or unwell to undergo major heart surgery.

Dr Raj Chelliah, the Interventional Cardiologist who is the trust’s TAVI lead, said: “In the past, patients in Hull, the East Riding, North Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire had to travel around two hours or more to either Sheffield or Leeds if they were considered suitable for the treatment.

“Now, we can offer them this life-changing procedure much closer to home.

“It is making a huge difference to patients with aortic valve disease who were not considered suitable for major heart surgery.”

This week, the Communications Team was invited to watch as the second list got underway at the Centre for Cadiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery following the success launch of TAVI in March.

The patient in their 80s is wheeled into the Cath Lab at the centre based at Castle Hill Hospital. Their anxiety is obvious and understandable.

But, surrounded by the anaesthetist and the friendly, dedicated and highly skilled Cath Lab Team, they are reassured and comforted until they fall under.

Theatre Nurses, Operating Department Practitioners and support staff under the guidance of Senior Sister Claire Bradley prepare for the procedure while the Radiographers get in position and the Interventional Cardiologists get scrubbed and gowned.

Anaesthesia takes around an hour and there are plans for Hull to follow the other centres in offering conscious sedation, which could see the procedure performed under local anaesthetic. This will mean less impact on the patient as well as the potential for more patients to be put on the list because of the procedure could be performed more quickly.

We’re given heavy wraparound lead aprons and gilets to wear over our scrubs to protect us from the continuous x-rays carried out while the patient is moved from the trolley onto the operating table to give the surgeons a view of what they’re doing on giant screens.

Dr Chelliah, assisted by Dr Joseph John and Dr Ben Davison, take up their positions as the patient is prepared for surgery.

In TAVI, a catheter or hollow tube with a balloon on the tip is inserted through arteries in the patient’s groin. The catheter is then passed into the heart and is positioned near the opening of the aortic valve.

The balloon is inflated to create space for a new tissue valve, which is then put in position and expanded, with the redundant and diseased value pushed out to the side.

But before one surgical instrument is lifted, the team fall silent for the WHO surgical check list, with all the patient’s details, allergies and condition checked and confirmed by everyone in the room, regardless of their job title.

And then we begin. Incisions are made in the patient’s groin while pacing wires and markers are inserted to guide the surgical team.

In the corner, a huge box is opened. It contains the TAVI delivery system, a complex network of tubes and wires which will be fed through the patient’s arteries to put the valve in place.

The 26mm valve has been selected specifically for this patient to prevent leaks. Looking at it encased in wire mesh on a table, it’s hard to imagine how it will ever end up in place, given the narrowness of the catheter. But then the magic begins.

The valve can be reshaped by cold water so it is placed in a trough containing two litres of ice-cold water before it is crimped into the delivery system and handed over to the surgical team.

Then, under the watchful eye of a surgical proctor assigned to guide and support our staff through the early days of TAVI, Dr Chelliah and Dr John feed the catheter through the patient’s artery with dexterity and skills, following the instructions of “half a turn” or “quarter of a turn”.

These are movements of tenths of millimetres but you’d never know the pressure these doctors are under as they go about their business. It is humbling.

Within half an hour, the valve is inflated and in place, the delivery system is removed and the closure work begins to stitch up the patient’s arteries. But the pressure isn’t off, as there’s a risk of severe bleeding and complications around the insertion sites.

Not today. It all goes to plan and in a matter of minutes, the patient is ready to be wheeled to recovery.

TAVI nurse Alan Fussey has watched the entire procedure but, really, his role is getting the patient to this point and looking after them once it’s over. He’s in theatre as the patient’s advocate. He’s built up a relationship with them over the weeks and months and he’s with them now.

He works in the clinic alongside Dr Chelliah, helping to identify patients who may be suitable for the procedure.

For those too frail or sick for major heart surgery, TAVI can be an option as the procedure puts less strain on the body because the heart does not need to be stopped and placed on bypass. It also avoids people having a large cut on their chests and can mean people recover more quickly than if they had undergone conventional surgery.

Alan said: “Patients are referred to Dr Chelliah and I go into clinic with him to discuss with the patient their suitability for TAVI.

“These patients have been turned down for surgery so TAVI is the only option. We then carry out investigations, arranging ECHOs and CT scans and, once they’re considered suitable, they are added to the list.”

Sometimes, it doesn’t work out as everyone has hoped and the tests show the patient isn’t suitable for TAVI. “It’s seen as a ‘last chance’ so, sometimes, we have to tell them that the last chance isn’t an option for them and that can be very hard to hear.”

But as the patient is wheeled out of the Cath Lab and into recovery, it’s been a success.

They will be closely monitored with all the usual post-op checks – blood pressure, heart rhythm and the like – but the insertion sites will be closely monitored too along with pulses in the feet to check circulation.

Then, hopefully within days, they’ll be well enough to go home to a new life, able to once more lead a life they may have thought was over.

A new eye surgery lab offering some of the best training facilities in the country has opened in Hull to help train the next generation of surgeons in Yorkshire.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has enlarged and upgraded its Hull Institute of Learning and Simulation Eye Surgery Lab to train junior doctors in eye surgery, including cataract surgery, one of the most common surgical procedures in the UK.

The ‘wet lab’ will be known as “The Stephen Foster Room” in memory of former patient Stephen Foster who raised £27,000 in a single day to thank eye surgeons and neurosurgeons after suffering a brain haemorrhage while out golfing.

Mr Foster died recently but his family (left, with Mr Innes) and friends were invited to the official opening ceremony attended by trust Chief Executive Chris Long on Friday.

Ophthalmology Consultant James Innes spent years planning and designing the lab in the Hull Institute of Learning and Simulation building next to Hull’s Eye Hospital.

Mr Innes said: “Surgical training is well past the times when you just ‘had a go’. The day I first started in 1978 was the day I did my first cataract operation and it was only the second one I’d ever seen. Now we have excellent simulation training to hone skills before supervised practice begins.

“It was different back then but, despite that, I always tell students how I had practiced for two years using a microscope so I was completely familiar with it.

“That’s why I was so keen for us to have real microscopes in the lab and thanks to the generosity of Stephen, we’ve been able to get the next stage of this project up and running.”

Between six and eight surgical trainees in ophthalmology per year from the Yorkshire Deanery will come to the lab throughout the next seven years before becoming fully qualified eye surgeons.

Junior doctors from other hospitals throughout the country will also be invited to training events and workshops at the lab.

As well as learning techniques for cataract surgery, the surgical trainees will also practice techniques used to deal with known complications such as advanced anterior vitrectomy, required when the clear membrane surrounding the lens of the eye ruptures or breaks.

Water is used during cataract operations and the specially designed operating tables in the lab allow trainers to simulate the exact conditions junior doctors will face in operating theatres.

With around half of eye doctors suffering back problems, the Wet Lab will feature adjustable tables to allow them to perform at exactly the right height. Operating chairs have also been sourced by Mr Innes and his team of designers to ensure junior doctors learn the correct position in which to operate from the outset of their careers.

Simulated eyes of various designs allow surgeons to improve skills and techniques in an environment allowing them permission to fail outside of the highly pressured operating theatre.

Four surgical microscopes, costing between £30,000 and £80,000, use overhead pendants instead of fixed in position and the students will be able to use foot pedals to zoom in and move the scope around as required.

Eye health products firm Bausch and Lomb is supporting the wet lab by providing cataract and VR surgical technology for training purposes and will also look after the maintenance of the equipment.

Adele Brown of Bausch and Lomb said: “Quality hands-on training is crucial for the development of the future generation of ophthalmologists.

“That’s why we are thrilled to be able to support this top-class facility to provide practical, skills-based education that will enable the team here to continue to deliver excellent care to patients across the region.”

A man who became the first nursing student to work with long-term patients in the former Kingston General Hospital has spoken of his 40-year service to the NHS to mark International Nurses Day.

Mike Hebblewhite became known as Mr Kingston General  and was credited with playing a major role in transforming care for older people in the city.

Now 85, Mr Hebblewhite, who was awarded the MBE for his services to nursing by the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 1987, said:  “It was hard work but I loved every minute of my career.

“It was a pleasure to come to work.”

Mike Hebblewhite at an awards presentation with Miss Amy Squibbs, an assessor from the General Nursing Council, in 1958

International Nurses Day is held every year on May 12, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth, to celebrate the contribution nurses make to society. This year’s celebrations also mark 100 years since the Nurses Registration Act was passed.

Mr Hebblewhite trained as a nurse after serving in the Royal Air Force as a medic for three years.

”When I went to the recruitment centre, I wanted to be a gunner but they said there weren’t rear gunners on planes anymore and I’d five minutes to think what else I could do,” he said.

“They said I could work in equipment or in the office but I didn’t fancy that. Then they asked what about running about in a field ambulance so I thought I’d give that a try.”

Initially posted at RAF Driffield, he spent two years in Iraq before he was demobbed. He couldn’t get his job back at Sanderson’s Paint Factory so, with the NHS in its infancy, decided to use his medical training and went to see the matron at Kingston General.

“She looked at my service record and said I’d need to start right at the bottom and that was fine with me,” he said.

Mr Hebblewhite was sent to work in the former Sculcoates Workhouse, which had been transformed into Kingston General Hospital, to work in the geriatric unit looking after people with long-term chronic conditions.

Back then, patients were institutionalised with conditions such as epilepsy, terminal syphilis or disabilities and often spent decades in hospital until they died on a 44-bed ward with open fires and huge cot beds with no day room.

Working first as a staff nurse and then a charge nurse, he helped to transform elderly care, introducing bingo sessions to occupy patients and trips to the pantomime.

Mike Hebblewhite marking the 150th anniversary of Kingston General Hospital in 1994

Mr Hebblewhite then moved to North Hull Clinic, which housed Hull’s first day hospital and helped the rehabilitation of patients after strokes, heart attacks or respiratory conditions.

Although “partnership working” has become a buzz word in recent years, it was in practice and part of daily life back then, with Mr Hebblewhite in direct contact with district nurses, council housing teams, social workers and therapists to assist the people who came into the centre.

“It wasn’t just the patients we looked after,” he said. “We were there for their families too and if someone told us they had an appointment on a day their mother wasn’t due to come to the centre, we’d arrange for them to come to us for an extra day.”

In 1992, he returned to Kingston General as site co-ordinator for the newly formed Royal Hull Hospitals Trust and stayed until his retirement four years later.

“My first three months in the job were spent washing lockers in the sluice room, cleaning and emptying bedpans and spittoons, changing and making beds,” he said. “It was superb grounding.

“For the first 11 years, I used to walk to and from work and that was while I was doing a 48-hour week but I didn’t mind. I loved it.

“My wife Sheila tells me I never saw the kids because I was backwards and forwards to the hospital all the time but that was just how it was.

“I miss the people and I do miss nursing in a way but I’ve been retired for 22 years and I’ve got it out of my system now.”

A leading midwife who ran Hull’s Maternity Hospital for two decades and played a significant role in shaping the profession is to be celebrated as part of this year’s International Day of the Midwife.

Kathleen Coni OBE was Matron of Hull Municipal Maternity Hospital from 1924 to 1946 during a career spent championing the midwifery profession.

She was awarded the OBE in 1943 for services to midwifery.  Reporting her death in 1965 at the age of 75, the Midwives Chronicle reported: “The midwifery profession suffered an irreparable loss and many midwives themselves have felt a personal grief at the passing of a dear and treasured friend.”

Now, the lives and times of the woman known as Miss Coni will be part of a celebration of the history of midwifery in Hull to mark International Day of the Midwife on Sunday, May 5.

Mike Pearson, Archivist at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, has looked out photographs and cuttings about Miss Coni to include in an exhibition at Hull Women and Children’s Hospital in the week leading up to the global celebration.

Janet Cairns, Head of Midwifery  at the trust, said: “Kathleen Coni played a remarkable role in developing midwifery and as matron of the maternity hospital, she was a crucial figure in the history of health services in Hull.

“International Day of the Midwife celebrates how far we’ve come as a profession in serving women and their families today.

“However, it’s important to look back at those pioneers who achieved so much to establish such strong foundations for midwifery to thrive.”

Mike Pearson said: “The midwifery profession has a lot to thank Miss Coni for and the importance of her work in Hull to develop the service for women and their families cannot be over-stated.

“We’re hoping people will enjoy seeing old cuttings and photographs charting the development of Hull’s maternity services over the years.”

Kathleen Coni wanted to be a nurse from the age of seven and became interested in the woman’s suffrage movement to demand the right to vote and social reform.

She obtained her hospital certificate in 1917 before completing her midwifery training at the General Lying-in Hospital in Lambeth and was part of a movement headed by Dame Rosalind Paget which helped establish the Royal College of Midwives.

Passionate about education, she was a strong advocate of midwifery training and her tireless work with post-graduate midwives.

She became Matron of Hull Maternity in 1924 then based in two semi-detached houses in Holderness Road. The day after she started, she was summoned by the city’s local authority to ask if she would take charge of moving maternity services to Cottingham, now the current site of Castle Hill Hospital.

The number of beds more than doubled from 14 to 30 with just two staff midwives and four women in training.

She was elected to the joint roles of President and Chairman of the Hull Association of Midwives and in 1925, holding the positions until 1946.

After five years, the maternity hospital then shifted to Hedon Road, this time with 100 beds. Part of the site was used as a nursery for babies and children up to five years with digestive problems, staffed by a midwife with “mothercraft experience”.

All trainee midwives spent time in the nursery, allowing them to build up their training as children’s nurses as well as midwives.

In 1936, Kathleen Coni was elected Midwives Institute Representative on the Central Midwives Board, the statutory body responsible for professional standards and the conduct of midwives.

Awarded the OBE during the Second World War, she remained at Hull Maternity until 1946 when she was forced to retire through ill health after suffering pneumonia and then a heart attack.

She moved south with her lifelong friend Mrs Mitchell and became honorary treasurer of the Royal College in 1947 and in 1948, when the NHS was formed, she was appointed to the first Hospital Management Committee.

Her obituary, published in the Chronicle, read: “The world can never be quite the same for any of us who loved her. We can only pay tribute to this great woman by trying to preserve the things which made her great.”

East Riding of Yorkshire Council has introduced a two month swim session pilot, aimed solely at people who are experiencing cancer or who have been through cancer in the past.

The pilot sessions, which will take place at three leisure centres across the East Riding, will enable eligible people to swim with others who know what they have been through.

Many people going through cancer may wear wigs, prosthetics or aids to help them during or after their treatment. The cancer swim sessions enable people to feel comfortable removing these items, show their scars and swim with others who are in a similar situation to them without feeling judged or embarrassed.

The viewing windows around the pool will be covered for the swimmers’ privacy and members of staff from the leisure centres have been trained as Cancer Champions, courtesy of the Cancer Alliance.

There is also the opportunity for swimmers to chat and socialise with people in the café afterwards.

Many people who are experiencing cancer are told by their GPs to maintain a healthy lifestyle, including physical exercise where possible. People should always check with health professionals that they are able to go swimming.

John Skidmore, director of adults, health and customer services, said: “During the council’s cancer awareness project, we have heard comments from people who are unable to continue swimming due to their diagnosis of cancer.

“We want to try to break down that barrier for them and help them to continue doing the hobbies or exercises they love doing without restrictions.”

The council is trialling the sessions for two months and the demand will be reviewed at the end of July. Any feedback received from the swimmers will be greatly appreciated.

Ian Rayner, head of culture and customer services, said: “We are delighted to offer these sessions to people who may need somewhere to go to be physically, mentally and socially active.

“We want swimmers to know that they can feel comfortable attending these sessions and that everything is being done to make their visit a pleasurable and rewarding experience.

“Our trained staff are keen to exercise their knowledge about cancer and physical activity in general and we hope that this gives the swimmers an even better experience at our leisure centres.”

The pilot will start on Thursday and will run until the end of July.

Participating leisure centres include:

• East Riding Leisure Francis Scaife Tuesdays from 1-2pm
• East Riding Leisure South Holderness Thursdays from 3.15-4.15pm
• East Riding Leisure Withernsea Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-3pm

To find out more information about cancer awareness, visit www.eastridinghealthandwellbeing.co.uk

To become involved in the council’s one-year cancer awareness campaign as a case study or a supporter, email Kimberley.nichol@eastriding.gov.uk or call (01482) 391444.

Memory boxes are to be given to children to help them cope with the death of a brother, sister or parent at hospitals in Hull, North Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire..

Abbie’s Fund, set up by Katy Cowell in memory of her daughter, has donated white, pink and blue boxes for brothers and sisters of babies and children who die at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the Labour & Delivery Suite, the Children’s Emergency Department or the Children’s Wards at Hull Royal Infirmary,

“Hug Me” hearts, where children struggling to ask for a hug can simply present the heart to a trusted adult to show what they need will be put inside the boxes.

Boxes will also be delivered to Adult Intensive Care Units at Hull and Grimsby to help children experiencing the death of a mother or father and to neonatal units in Doncaster and Scunthorpe.

Family finger print pictures, where every member of the family contributes their fingerprint to a family tree alongside their loved one, “heart in the hand” keyrings, teddies, clay moulds for hand and foot prints are among the items included in the box.

Anne Dalby, Sister on Ward 130 at Hull Royal Infirmary, said: “We are so grateful to Katy for all she has done to help families experiencing the death of a loved one.

“We hope they will help children to process their grief when their brother or sister dies and come to terms with their loss in a personal way.

“The boxes will allow them to feel close to their brother or sister, keeping their memories of them close and in a way that we hope will give them comfort.”

Katy and her husband Paul set up Abbie’s fund after their daughter Abbie Grace was stillborn at 38 weeks at Hull Women and Children’s Hospital in October 2010. She weighed 5lbs 4oz, was absolutely perfect but had died in the womb after the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck five times.

Katy and Paul spent two days in the hospital’s bereavement room with Abbie in a cold cot to allow them to spend precious time with their little girl.

They were given a memory box by a midwife shortly after Abbie was born, containing her hand and footprints and a lock of her hair.

Katy said: “We had planned to buy a memory box after we had left hospital but this removed the emotional trauma of searching for one at a time when we were consumed with grief.  We were extremely grateful.

“From our experiences following Abbie’s death, we have put together a box of keepsakes and ideas that we hope will help parents who find themselves in this situation to make precious memories.”

Katy recently joined the Paediatric Unit Bereavement Group working with nurses and play specialists to look at ways to support bereaved parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters.

Play specialist Gina Kirk said: “This can be a child’s special box where they can keep their memories. It can be useful straight away but it can also be something they can keep to help them.

“Katy has done an amazing thing to help other families and we’re so grateful for what she has done and the support she gives us.”

Katy said: “Abbie’s Fund has supported families who have lost a baby since 2010 and had recently developed memory boxes for siblings so we were in a great position to develop memory boxes for parents of older children, older siblings and for children who lose a parent.

“It has been an honour to be part of this group and we are really proud of the support we are able to give to many more local families who find themselves in this devastating situation.”