Overworked midwife fell ill after having no time to visit the bathroom at work

JANE Greaves was so flat out looking after mums-to-be she didn’t even have time to pee. Then when she got sick, she lost her job.

A MIDWIFE who developed a serious kidney infection after being too overworked to visit the toilet was then stood down due to “poor sickness”.

Jane Greaves, who worked at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, UK, lost her job last month after falling ill on December 31, 2017.

The 46-year-old was so unwell she ended up in hospital on a drip, and was off work for seven days.

• How to answer ‘dreaded’ interview question

• Man loses $1.8 million ‘Mr Stinky’ farting case

• ‘Why bitcoin is like the flu’

The mother-of-three told Metro she worked in a unit with no staff toilets, and that employees were banned from using patients’ bathrooms.

She said she was forced to visit facilities located “several minutes” away, and that the ward was so understaffed she felt she couldn’t spare the time to take toilet breaks.

“Even if you are being quick it takes several minutes there and back to the toilets and with our staffing levels, I can’t risk leaving a mum to go to the toilet,” she said.

“We have lost a third of the staff — a midwife and healthcare assistant — on the part of the labour unit where I work and it’s too risky to leave my women.

“Work is all I have got so to take it away from me is horrendous.”

In total, Ms Greaves took 14 days of sick leave between January 2017 and January 2018, which is below the average.

However, after her most recent illness, she was given several warnings about her “sickness level”, and was ultimately fired.

A Change.org petition calling for Ms Greaves to be reinstated has attracted almost 40,000 signatures.

It was created by a midwife who had worked alongside Ms Greaves for “several years”, who praised the sacked woman’s “hard work, tremendous skill and experience and commitment to go over and above the call of duty for women in her care”.

Ms Greaves has worked as a midwife for 16 years.

She said she had warned management about the toilet problem “at least 50 times” before contracting the infection.

Ms Greaves’ case is being represented by health union Unison, and chairman Adrian O’Malley said in his 35-year career, he had “never encountered a sacking like it”.

“Before her kidney infection Jane had only been sick for a week,” Mr O’Malley said.

“Even with the seven days for her kidney infection — ordered by one of the Trust’s own doctors — her absence rate was still less than the trust average. So how the hell can they sack her over her sickness record?”

[e-mail]