Handle with care. Sincere confessions of a health visitor

Rachel Hirson is a health visitor with over 40 years of experience. The work of a health visitor takes place behind closed doors: invisible, but no less important. We are privileged and have unique access to all families with children under 5 years old: our office is your living room. Our duty is to visit you at home. When you have a small child, we are the only professional medical caregivers who consistently care for them. A health visitor is one of the professions that is often unfairly underestimated. So what, just dropping by for a cup of tea! Can you compare that to the work of a real nurse, someone who helps in a hospital? Not at all. A health visitor is a professional healthcare worker who has undergone three years of training and is sent to work in the community at their own risk. Here, you have no support team behind you that you can call for help in a critical situation. You do not sit with the hosts by the hearth, and you have no outlet for deep conversations with colleagues during lunch breaks. And there is no one nearby to simply ask: Do you think I am wrong? These notes are dedicated to the most heart-wrenching, scandalous, and frankly inhumane situations that Rachel has encountered during her time working in the National Health Service of the UK.