A newly qualified paramedic has hit the ground running – she has helped deliver four babies since starting ambulance station duties last December.
Kathryn Hill, 27, one of a new breed of paramedics who is now out on the roads of Wales as a ground-breaking university course begins to bear fruit, says thankfully her extensive training included a module on childbirth.
She said: “It’s amazing really, some paramedics never get to deliver a baby yet I’ve managed four in my first few months. And as I was working with the same partner for two of the births he’s a bit worried about working with me!
“On each occasion we have responded to a call and arrived before the midwife. I’ve had to start preparing for the birth while looking after mum until the midwife arrived. Thankfully, each time the midwife arrived and took control while I’ve assisted.
“It’s an amazing experience helping deliver a baby. However, it’s always a bit of a concern when mum can’t make it to the maternity unit as so much can go wrong and you haven’t got the luxury of hospital back-up.
“Thankfully, on all four occasions everything has gone like clockwork and the mums, and their daughters – all four were girls – have been perfectly healthy. I have to be honest though I’m a little disappointed not one of them has been named after me!”
The Welsh Ambulance Service entered into a pioneering partnership with Swansea University two years ago and now the first crop of 30 graduates of the new paramedic course, including Kathryn, are tending to the people of Wales.
Kathryn is delighted she is working as a relief paramedic out of Neath Ambulance Station as she grew up and still lives in the area.
She says she loves her new job and says it was definitely worth all the hard work and sacrifice of the two-year paramedic course.
Kathryn said: “I was working as a physiotherapy technician for five years at Singleton Hospital but when I saw the paramedic course on offer at Swansea University I just knew I had to give it my best shot.
“It was tough as my partner was made redundant and then set up his own handy-man business at the same time. I ended up in university Monday to Friday and then worked as an auxiliary nurse at the weekends at either Singleton or Morrsiton Hospitals.
“The problem was we had a mortgage to pay and there was no other way of doing it. My other concern was that it was made clear to us all right from the start that there was no guarantee of a job at the end of the course.”
She added: “However, I was determined to pass and equally determined to get a job, anywhere in Wales to be honest, so I was delighted to end up here in Neath which is where I grew up anyway.
“The course was fantastic and to be honest the Welsh Ambulance Service and Swansea University deserve a huge amount of credit. The balance between classroom theory and practical work placements after each module was brilliant.
“The pressure was on me personally with having a mortgage to pay and all that comes with it. However, my partner and family were really supportive and backed me all the way; I simply couldn’t have done it without them.”
And Kathryn says being a paramedic is all she dreamt it would be.
She said: “I’m not a big fan of night shifts but who is? However, I love meeting new people and its great coming into work having no idea what the day will bring. I’ve been incredibly busy and had a run of cardiac arrests as well as a pretty horrible industrial accident to deal with alongside my childbirth exploits.
“It’s been an incredible learning curve but I am thoroughly enjoying putting theory into practice and wouldn’t swap my paramedic job for any other as I love the challenge, the variety, the team work and the fact I can make a real difference to people in the community.”
Andy Williams, the Welsh Ambulance Service’s Senior Education and Development Lead, has played a major role in bringing the students, including Kathryn, through and he said: “We have developed a good working relationship with Swansea University.
“The programme is designed so students spend half of their time in the University, learning most of the theoretical elements of their role. The rest of the time is split between the Ambulance Training College, where they learn their practical skills and the theory to support them, and on practice placements in the operational setting.
“Each student is allocated a Practice Placement Educator, who has been selected to support and further develop the skills learned in the classroom when they go out on operational duties, either as the third person in an emergency ambulance or as the second in a rapid response vehicle.
“In total 44 finished the University course and we’ve employed 30 of them as well as two others, from John Moores University in Liverpool and South Central Health Centre at Oxford Brookes University.”
The graduates come out with Diplomas in Paramedic Science and Andy Williams added: “It is an on-going process and we are learning from how it works and the course is evolving all the time.
“The graduates are now out on the road as paramedics, and it will be interesting for us to see how well they adjust – it will be a challenging time for them as well as they settle into their new role.”
Swansea University is also delighted with the success of the course with a further 51 students currently on their second and final year with another 46 first years beginning the course last September.
Mike McIvor, Lecturer in Emergency, Unscheduled and Pre Hospital Care at the University of Swansea, has been involved in the training of many of those now in senior positions in the Welsh Ambulance Service, including Andrew Jenkins, Wales’s first Consultant Paramedic and Andy Williams, both of whom have a B Sc in Pre-Hospital Care.
He said: “Swansea University has been involved in the field of unscheduled and emergency care for many years and the link with the Welsh Ambulance Service also goes back well over 10 years.
“It’s fantastic that we have managed to provide a brand new intake of paramedics for Wales through this course. It’s a first for Wales, a good collaboration with an ambulance service in the UK and this does seem to be the way the College of Paramedics wants to take paramedic education forward.
“They spend 45 weeks in the year on the course, half of that time here with us and the other half out on the road with ambulance crews or accompanying a paramedic in a rapid response vehicle.
“We do work closely with Andy Williams and his colleagues both here at the University and at the National Ambulance Training College at Cefn Coed in Swansea and they’re pivotal in ensuring that particular skills are developed and assessed.
“The students are educated so that they know how to do something as well as having the underpinning knowledge and the skill to seek out evidence for practice. Paramedic students study a range of subjects including sociology, psychology, social policy and law as well as biological science and clinical skills.
“It is a challenging profession because they’re out there in a very high pressure situation with the responsibility for patient care – I take my hat off to the staff who are out there on a daily basis.
“We’re doing our best to make sure they have a range of additional underpinning knowledge, skills in reflection and people skills to help them in their role.”
