Midwife crisis

AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Renard Teelucksingh and I’m Trinidad and Tobago's third male midwife.

I came from the deep south. Cedros is where I grew up. I am pleased to hear I am the first Trini to the Bone from there.

I went to primary school in Cedros and secondary school in Point Fortin, half an hour away from home.

It is only when I started university that I ever left Cedros. And came to St Augustine, where I have been living since.

Even in Cedros, I wasn’t one to go out and party or go to the bars. I was always at home. Or I would probably do some gardening, which I started at a young age. Even up to today I still do kitchen garden, ornamental plants, anything like that.

I probably got that from my mother, from being by her side when she was pruning and watering her whole lot of bougainvilleas on the porch.

Right now I have a forest outside my place in St Augustine.

My dad is still with us, but my mom passed in 2010.

I’m the middle of three siblings, a brother four years older and a sister one year younger. I accept BC Pires’ proposition that I don’t have proper Middle Child Syndrome because I was the baby son. Not a middle son.
And I was spoiled by my mother!

But I did have to work harder to get my parents’ attention. For example, neither of my siblings are into gardening at all.

At the moment, I’m not involved with anyone.

Mostly, my career is what I’m focusing on. I want to be able to provide for my family if and when I do have one.

I was one of the last standard five classes to do the Common Entrance exam at Cedros Government Primary. I did CXC and A-Levels at Point Fortin Senior Secondary.

I liked school most times. And I
always liked sciences.

I did a year of natural sciences at UWI and then transferred into nursing at COSTAATT.

All the way back, as far as I can remember, I remember myself wanting to be in the medical field. That’s the only thing I saw my (adult) self doing as a child.

I wasn’t successful in getting into medical school to become a doctor, so the next best thing was nursing.

But I’m
not
a frustrated doctor.

I believe, like my mother said, that things happen for a reason and nursing and midwifery was supposed to be my path in life.

I am a believer. I was raised Hindu by my dad’s father, but when he passed when I was about nine or ten, we stopped following the Hindu tradition, although we still celebrated Divali.

I can’t remember why my mom sent us to church one morning, but every Sunday after that, we kept going. And I just understood what was happening in church was where I wanted to go.

I was baptised Presbyterian in 2010 when my mother passed.

If BC Pires challenges me to reconcile a caring, omnipotent God with all the suffering he clearly permits, I can’t.

My belief is based on my personal life, things I had to overcome. I needed that avenue to turn to.

But I have those same questions: if there is a God, why are people being murdered every day? I’m a midwife. If there is a God, why do babies die?

Where I live in Cedros, my backyard is the ocean. You hear the waves crashing all the time.

It’s only when you’re out of it that you realise how much you miss it.

The only thing really to do in Cedros is go to the beach. Most of my time outside of school I spent there, playing football, learning to swim, trying to fish.

I am a proud country boy and was not accustomed to city life. It was not an easy transition to come to live in St Augustine and work in Port of Spain and El Socorro.

In Cedros when it is dark, you’re still outside. You on the porch.

Up here, once it’s dark, you lock yourself up inside. That was a big shock to me.

If I could get my way, I would work at a beachside hospital.

And that would help my patients to heal as well. Getting out of that hospital setting, the smells of the hospital room, that sort of thing.

I did English literature at CXC, but I’m not a reader. It’s the one thing I didn’t like in school. I read
if
I have to.

I did To Kill a Mockingbird, a great book and one of the few I’ve read. I can’t remember the Shakespeare book.

Of
course
I’m a Game of Thrones fan! As well as anything medical. Gray’s Anatomy was a major thing.

Movie-wise, anything thrilling, horrors. I’m a big Harry Potter fan. Of the movies. I started the books but couldn’t keep up.

A simple thing like saying good morning when you walk into a room. Young people don’t do that nowadays.

In emergencies, doctors are important, but you really need nurses.

The doctors are just in and out. We spend 98 per cent of the time with patients.

I did the challenging programme to become a registered nurse from 2009-14, classroom time plus practical aspects. You have to do a practical exam before your written exam.

But as a general nurse, you’re not trained to deliver a baby or do women’s health.

I started to work in the private sector in the Accident and Emergency for six years.

I got tired of it. I needed to do something else.

And then they began accepting males into the midwifery programme. I thought it would make me an all-round nurse, let me give it a try.

I have delivered over 70 babies in the hospital setting and three home deliveries.

When that first home delivery went fine, I thought: this is so amazing: a woman can have her baby home in the comfort of her own bed! Where she doesn’t have to wait to see the baby and the baby can stay with her full time!

We need to do
much more of this in Trinidad.

I think there are only just three of us male midwives. It may sound cliché but I wanted to help break that stigma. I want to be a role model for other males who want to do nursing but are scared of that stigma that only females could be midwives.

The best thing about being a midwife is handing that baby over to the mother. Being in the presence of somebody being born into this world and to know I am the first person this new baby is going to meet, I can’t describe that feeling!

Just recently, the parents sent me photos of my home deliveries who are now starting school! There is no feeling like that in life.

The bad thing is you will have babies who die. That’s not nice.

Thankfully, I’ve only lost one baby. And that was one too many for me.

A Trini is very resilient. No matter where they go in this world or what position they find themselves in, they don’t give up. And they make it.

Apart from it being my home, Trinidad and Tobago is a place that, no matter the state of the country, every creed and race can unite as one and all are welcome.

I grew up loving everyone, every culture, every religion.

My Muslim friends light deyas at Divali, my Hindu friends eat curry goat at Eid. And Christians do both.

I don’t believe there’s anywhere else in the world where that can happen.

Read the full version of this feature on Friday evening at www.BCPires.com