An Exciting and Learning Experience Part One

When I went to Long Island University Brooklyn Center in Downtown Brooklyn, New York it was the late 1970s. To be able to get my diploma I also took the two summer semesters. Downtown Brooklyn was the shopping district and also had big department stores like Abraham & Strauss.However, to get a part time job between my morning and late afternoon classes it was very difficult to match the hours. So I decided that since heading home on the subway was not an option and I had quite a few hours to spare I headed for The Brooklyn Hospital and signed up as a vounteer. Even though I was a business major I loved babies and children so I decided to volunteer at the Maternity Ward, the Delivery Room to be exact. I discovered that this was time very well spent and I enjoyed it a lot. Here is my story.

Adventures in the Maternity Ward

I loved babies and children a lot so considering all of the possibilities a hospital presented I figured the maternity ward was a good place for me. I arrived at the hospital with determination and quickly signed up. I remember my first day and how nervous I was. I entered the maternity ward through two swinging doors and was informed about the rules. Entering the ward to the right was the reception room and to the left was the break room. Next to the reception on the right was the nurses’ station and beyond that a big yellow line. I was not allowed to go beyond there. There were the rooms which the mother’s were taken to when contractions began and further on down the long hallway were the delivery rooms.

I quickly started to learn the ropes and of course found out what my duties would be. This was the time before computer systems came into hospitals so in the nurses’ station there was a blackboard upon which were written all the names of the mothers who were scheduled for delivery. A full board meant a very heavy day. At first I thought I’d be in trouble because the neighborhood had a great deal of Spanish-speaking people and I didn’t know a word of Spanish. Imagine my nervousness faced with mommies who came in with problems, for check-ups just before delivery and of course in labor. It was also up to me to keep the nervous daddies outside of the swinging doors. At that time I don’t remember one daddy who came in to assist with their wife’s delivery. Odd but so it was at that hospital.

Of course my favorite time was after each delivery when I had to make sure all the charts were together for each patient and seeing those chubby little darlings in the incubators. Once everything was said and done I assisted a nurse to wheel the new mom to her room and the baby to the nursery. After the first day there were many learning experiences and adventure in the delivery room.

Discovering the Morgue

Life continued happily in the Maternity Ward. I was really enjoying my volunteer work and I had befriended the nurses who were glad that I took some of the menial tasks from them. I was also the errand runner and there were days which were very busy so the nurses sent me across the street to a deli which made fantastic sandwiches which we ate in the break room. This way we were all available as patients came and went. Otherwise the nurses took turns and went to eat in the hospital cafeteria. If anyone at this point thinks that the food was bad because it was hospital food then the opposite was true for Brooklyn Hospital. The food in the cafeteria was plentiful and it was delicious.

I had become very efficient at filling out the charts for the expectant mommies and I was also becoming very aware of things to look out for so that I could warn the nurses if anything was amiss. The parade of incubators came and went and I adored all those chubby little faces. One afternoon as everyone scurried about a mom who had just delivered was left on a gurney in the hallway just waiting transport to her room. Her son had already had his VIP transport to the nursery. As I passed by the new mom I heard her softly moan. She had had some kind of complication and was attached to an IV. To my horror I saw that the needle which had been inserted looked at an odd angle and her hand was puffing up to twice its size. Luckily one of the nurses was at the Nurses Station and I alerted her to the problem.

Afterwards I thought I would be asked to help transport the mom to her room but instead I was told to deliver some messages down to the telephone operators. Well this was my first trip down to the basement and you can imagine what kind of things I thought I would discover way down in a hospital basement. So down I went. The elevators only went as far as the first floor and the rest of the way was on foot. So down I went feeling very uneasy. Boy I remember that it seemed to me like those scenes in Hollywood horror flicks. Some of which I remembered sharply was one of the kids Ritchie in the TV movie “IT” from the novel by Stephen King goes down to the school basement and meets the Mummy and of course there was always the good old scene with Jack Nicholson coming at everyone with an axe in “The Shining”. My imagination was on overdrive.

The lights down there were very dim and there was an incredibly long hallway to walk down until I reached my goal at the very end. The telephone operators were situated in a large room with all kinds of equipment at the very back because there was a separate entrance through which they could come to and go from the hospital. So down the hallway I went. Just me no one around and all these dark niches and such. Just as I reached the operators I happened to see a door on it was a sign Morgue. Now I knew where the Mummy and the maniac were hiding. Surely it had to be in there. For some reason feeling frightened as I was that was a fitting finish to end up at the hospital morgue. I gave the operators the messages and wondered how they felt working so close to the one place you wanted to avoid the most. It was then that I also discovered that I could use their entrance and exit the hospital and walk around to the front to take the elevator back to the Maternity Ward.

Finding Love in the Maternity Ward

Continuing my adventures while at university and volunteering at Brooklyn Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. No you didn’t get that wrong. It is possible to find a bit of romance even in the maternity ward. Of course you could say it is an odd place for romance and a dangerous place for romance. One particularly hot summer’s day I arrived for my volunteer work to find the ward in chaos. The blackboard was full and there was even a waiting line in the reception/exam room. I sighed and got to work. Being proficient by this time in filling out the charts about information from the mommies I was put behind the desk and started filling out the charts. Luckily for me this time no mommy went into labor.

Afterwards when I got a moment to take a break I went into the break room and had something to drink. Coming out into the hallway I bumped into a young intern who gave me a brilliant smile. No nothing like in the movies. He didn’t look like Cary Grant and not even close to Johnny Depp. He was an Italian with dark curly hair, short and a bit on the plump side but there was something charming in his manner. Soon he was paying me compliments and always took a few moments to stop to talk to me.

It was quite flattering and after that I really looked forward to my work there. There is just something so wonderful about getting some extra attention from an older man who was going to become a doctor. However no full blown romance though. We went out a few times and had lunch together. Of course I always saw him coming and going from the maternity ward. The most romantic thing that ever occurred in the ward was this extremely hot day when the lights started flickering.

Now of course every hospital has a generator in case of a power outage but they also have to consider which wards can lose a bit of power and which need full power. So the maternity ward wound up with very low lighting and the nurses lit up candles in the Nurses’ Station so that we could all read the blackboard and see the charts and other things. So there I was standing with the candles flickering looking over some tasks I had to do when my charming intern entered. He put a small flower in front of me and put his hand over my hand. I tell you there is nothing like holding hands by candlelight in the maternity ward of a hospital.