A woman who gave up her job as an NHS midwife because she felt so anxious she would call her ward at 3am to check on high-risk patients has found happiness training guide dogs.
Olivia Hutchinson, 27, from Skipton, North Yorkshire, is sharing her story in the hope it will show others it is never too late to change career.
Olivia spent three years training to become a midwife but realised six months into the role that it was not for her. She said she constantly felt guilty about not being able to spend enough one-on-one time with the pregnant women and new mothers on the ward and it all became too much.
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She would go home after her 13-hour shift and lie awake in bed worrying about her patients, some of whom risked losing their babies to health complications such as seizures or haemorrhages.
While she did not want to let down her “amazing team”, Olivia said she felt a “sense of panic” that midwifery was not the right career for her, and after helping with the Covid vaccine roll-out, began applying for other jobs.
By chance, she stumbled upon a Facebook advert for the charity Guide Dogs in January 2022, and has now qualified as an academy guide dog mobility specialist, training dogs to guide people with sight loss.
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She hopes her experience helps others who are afraid of “taking the jump” into a new career. She told PA Real Life: “I used to constantly think, ‘what if this, what if that’. It’s the anxiety for the women you are looking after, checking up on and making sure they are OK, that keeps you up at night.
“You don’t want to let anybody else on the team down because if you’re not there, that means that they’re another staff member down and they’re already short of staff. Some people have got the resilience to do that job, and I just didn’t. I think that was it, it just wasn’t right for me regardless of how much I enjoyed it.”
(Image: PA)
Olivia decided to study midwifery at the University of Bradford as she “always wanted to help people”. As part of her course she completed a placement on the maternity ward at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which she described as an “eye opener to what the world of maternity is like”.
After graduating in August 2019 she moved to Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where she began working on the ante and post-natal ward at another hospital in Yorkshire.
“It was daunting,” she said. “The team was always amazing and so supportive.”
Olivia was tasked with looking after high-risk pregnant women and those who had just given birth but needed to remain on the ward.
“I would start at 7am and finish at around 8pm,” she continued. “I was working with doctors, nurses and other midwives to provide care for the women and their babies. We would do ward rounds, where you check in with your women and make sure they are OK.”
It was during this time that Olivia began to question whether she was cut out for this line of work because she wanted to spend more time with each patient.
“There were just that many women on the ward,” she said. “So you would spend all your time looking after the high-risk patients – the ones that worried you. Then you would feel guilty because the lower-risk ones who maybe just needed help breastfeeding or were first-time mums, didn’t get that support.”
On average, Olivia said she would have eight women to see throughout the day.
“On a thirteen-hour shift that gives you just over an hour with each person,” she said. “But if you’ve got a high-risk person there, they probably need to see you once every hour.”
As time passed, Olivia began to feel increasingly anxious about her job. She said: “You would go home feeling bad that you were not giving the level of care that you wanted to give to the lower-risk women. Then you would be sat at home, worrying about the higher-risk women.”
Women on the ward were deemed high-risk if they faced medical complications such as high blood pressure, seizures or haemorrhage and if there were concerns about their baby not moving enough or they needed to be induced.
“I was so worried that I wasn’t sleeping very well,” she said. “I used to ring up the ward in the night just to check how people were. It’s only since I’ve been out of it that I’ve realised how unhealthy it is to do that. But in the moment you’re worrying and you want to make sure they are OK.”
Olivia was conflicted about wanting to change careers and not wanting to let her team down. She added: “You stick it out because that’s what you’ve been trained to do and you don’t want to let anyone else on the team down.
“But I look back now and the best thing I ever did was realise that it wasn’t right for me.”
Staff shortages were one of the main contributing factors, she said.
“The main thing was just the staffing numbers, which is always talked about,” she said. “If you have more staff people wouldn’t feel as overwhelmed and stressed.”
Six months into the job, in early 2021, Olivia began looking at other career options within the health sector, but then Covid struck and she decided to help with the vaccine roll-out.
After returning to her midwife duties Olivia began applying for other roles within the NHS before spotting an advert on Facebook for the charity Guide Dogs.
“I remember laughing and being like, oh look at that, that would be fun,” she said. I just clicked on it to have a look at the job spec and was like, yes, I can do that. I thought I’ll just go for it and see what happens.”
Since January 2022 she has worked for the charity as an academy guide dog mobility specialist, teaching dogs the skills they require to guide people with sight loss.
“Other people seem to joke that I have just moved from baby poo to dog poo,” she said. All jobs have their own stresses but I am much happier now and feel I can manage my stresses more easily.
“The emotion we see when we match someone with a guide dog is just amazing.” Asked what advice she has for people who are afraid of making a career change, Olivia said: “If it’s not right for you, just do it. You just have to make the jump and see what happens. I applied for a lot of other jobs before I got this one. I really love my job now. It’s still got its stresses and stuff but I’ve definitely got my passion back.”
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