May 5th was World Midwife Day, so The Southern Star took some time to speak to midwife Elke Hasner from Toames near Macroom about her work in West Cork.
Midwife Elke Hasner, who lives near Toames near Macroom, has delivered 958 babies so far in 40 years of practice.
She moved from her native Germany over 35 years ago where she’d worked in hospital settings and today, Elke has her own HSE-funded clinic attached to her home, where she provides free antenatal services, home birth services, classes, partner exercises and post-natal care.
‘I’m there basically from when the baby is born. I do the heel test at home, I give the breastfeeding support, I weigh the baby, I include the siblings, if they’re there, and the partner. We bathe the baby together; it’s really valuable for women to have that continuity throughout that period as well.’
After qualifying as a midwife in Germany in 1983, Elke worked in two major maternity units and a small cottage hospital for two years respectively, as well as working independently providing post-natal support.
She made the move to West Cork in the late 1980s, in order to embrace the ‘slower pace than on the continent,’ the friendliness, and the sense of acceptance, but she didn’t intend to continue her work as a midwife.
Demand in the local area, however, saw her returning to midwifery, and she delivered her first Irish home birth baby on the 1st of January 1990.
‘There wasn’t really a place for what I wanted to do. I was probably used to a different system to be honest with you. And here there was only the hospital available,’ she says. ‘But there were literally people knocking on my door when we moved to the Ballingeary area and they heard that a midwife had come, and they asked me to deliver their babies.’
She found a way to set up her own home birthing practice, and registered with the HSE (formerly The Southern Health Board).
‘It just kind of happened to all fall into place,’ she admits.
‘We established a free service, with five antenatal visits, and homebirth where we are trained professionals. We train for emergencies, and we have the equipment, we have the oxygen, and we have the medication.
We have the ambulance controls behind us, we have labour ward support, and we still maintain our self-employed status,’ she says.
Elke is one of a number of midwives involved in the Cork and Kerry Home Birth Service, which has been in operation for over 25 years. She is proud of what she and other practitioners have established over the years with little financial recognition at the beginning of their journey.
‘We are all working together’, she says. ‘We have a good relationship with the HSE, they contract us and there is no private payment involved,’ she explains.
These close ties with the HSE and emergency services bolster the safety of the practice, which Elke says is ‘the utmost priority.’
When asked what called her to midwifery, Elke says she had always wanted to work with women.
‘Midwifery was the one choice that I very much liked. And you know, just to have that connection with women at a very important time of their life. It’s a lifechanging event really, to have a baby, and to support them and be with them, I thought was just a huge privilege. And to this day, nearly 40 years later, I still love it.’
Self-employed midwifery offered Elke a way to continue her work, in an alternative setting to hospitals.
‘We still maintain our self-employed status and I’m happy about that. Just supporting women in their own way in the safety of their own home, letting birth unfold, and not being on the clock.
‘It’s having your own surroundings, and choosing the people that you want to be with when you have your baby,’ she says.
‘There is something really personal and beautiful about that.’
