Mater Hospital Rockhampton midwife Sally Hillman talks about her 40 year career

A Central Queensland midwife has opened up about her 40 year career looking after premature babies. See her story here.

She has cared for more than 1000 premature babies in the past 40 years and seen huge changes in the way they’re cared for since starting out, but special care nursing midwife Sally Hillman has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.

Ms Hillman was just one of the many midwives around the country who were celebrated on International Midwives Day recently.

She started her career as a registered nurse at the Mater Private Hospital Rockhampton in 1983 and now works not far from where her career started in the hospital’s special care nursery.

Ms Hillman said working on the paediatric and neonatal side of nursing was her “calling”.

Sally Hillman has cared for more than 1000 babies in her 40 year career. Photo: Sally Hillman

She said she went into her role in the special care nursery so she could learn more about the tiny bubs she was looking after.

“I don’t think I’ll ever tire of caring for beautiful new babies and helping families at such a precious time in their lives,” she said.

“It’s an honour to be able to witness and assist families as they welcome a new life into the world.

“To be able to see a premature baby born, and care and cuddle them over the next weeks or months as they grow and get stronger in hospital, and then watch them go home – you realise you have one of the best jobs in the world.”

Ms Hillman said the feeling of being able to see the young bubs go home after a long journey in hospital was one of the most “lovely feelings”.

“From being there in the delivery room for resuscitation to having them in the nursery and seeing them go through that journey with their family,” she said.

“Some of them are quite unwell, so seeing the improvement or just them building their confidence and putting on a bit of weight and watching them grow … sometimes they can be a very, very sick child and go through ups and downs and then seeing them go home and later running into them at the shops and seeing how they’re going; it’s one of the most lovely feelings.”

In her career spanning four decades, Ms Hillman has seen many changes in nursing including in medications given to little babies to help with their recovery.

Ms Hillman said seeing bubs go home after a long journey was a “lovely feeling”. Photo: Sally Hillman

“One of the biggest things (that is different now), is a surfactant drug is produced now,” she said.

“When babies born at 24 weeks or above are intubated and it (the surfactant) is fed through the tube into the lungs lubricating the airways to get movement … it’s something we didn’t have years ago.

“We’re seeing so many great improvements from the studies they did on oxygen delivery.

“The changes and advancements of care for premature babies has been immense over the past four decades.”

Ms Hillman said she has cared for three generations of babies from the same family.

“It’s amazing how many times a grandmother visiting their new grandchild in hospital will remember me and how I helped them care for their baby 20 odd years ago,” she said.

“I always said I wasn’t old enough to be delivering second generations in the one family but now I’m also getting third generations.

“All the babies I’ve cared for over the years have been special and they’ve all left a mark on my heart.”

Ms Hillman said the changes in nursing over the last 40 years had been immense. Photo: Stephen J Vit

As well as providing special care to premature babies, Ms Hillman also provides baby first aid classes to couples and grandparents to help them be prepared before the birth of their new family member.

“Baby first aid is a little different from regular first aid and these Mater Education courses provide people with confidence ahead of the birth of their new babies,” she said.

“They’re also a great bonding experience for many parents-to-be and their own parents.”

Ms Hillman said while she was 61 years old, she had no plans to retire anytime soon.