Edith Marimbirie

I worked night shift last Saturday night.
A member of staff on his break was reading one of those cheapo, nasty newspaper comics and had noticed a somewhat excitable story of a woman who had fallen head first from a lap dancing pole and had broken her neck. The unfortunate woman had been paralysed and permanently ventilated and the staff nurse only showed me the clipping as he noticed that she had been admitted to my old unit in Sheffield.
Our conversation widened around my previous workplace and we ambled through discussions about routine differences, managerial styles and staff make up.
In Sheffield our staffing was generally more eclectic than it is in North Wales. There was ,as usual a smattering of local born and bred Yorkshire nurses (untrained support workers made up the largest number of Sheffield born staff) but as it is common with a large city teaching hospital, most of the other trained staff members hailed from all over the UK and from other countries such as a the Philippines and Southern Africa.
Apart from a knot of Filipino staff nurses here in Wales, most of the staff I work alongside of are locals and I must admit that I do miss that eclectic mix of ideas,perceptions and experiences that come from a multicultural staff mix.
And I do miss working alongside the African nurses in particular.
Formal, polite and unhurried, they gave to a sometimes exhausting and frenetic ward the sense of order and calm. Sometimes this very calmness of nature could by some be viewed as being somewhat laisser -faire, but I loved their unflappability and warmth .
Of all of my previous staff one nurse in particular sticks in my memory. Edith Marimbirie was a senior nurse midwife supervisor in Zimbabwe and left her country after the gorvernment had destroyed most of the healthcare, economy and educational infrastructure.
In the UK she accepted a job as a junior nurse on our Spinal Unit despite being grossly over qualified for the position and I remember well interviewing her for the job as she had a warmth and a dignity that was striking.
Edith was well loved and respected by her colleagues,had a sing-song voice that was always laughing and made a point of holding your hand when she spoke to you; she never raised her voice, had an ample motherly bosom and walked by swinging her arms from left to right and even five years down the line from working with her, I still wonder just what she is doing now. ( These blog thoughts have been prompted by Eric's post on losing a trusted member of staff from his cafe-
http://mountainrambler.blogspot.com/
funny where your mind leads you eh?