Handle with caution. Sincere confessions of a health visitor

Rachel Hirsan 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 uniquely positioned to access 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 become the only professional caregivers who continuously care for them. A health visitor is one of the professions that is often unfairly disregarded. What's the big deal about popping in for a cup of tea? How does that compare to the work of a real nurse, one who helps in a hospital? It's absolutely not the same. A health visitor is a professional medical worker who has undergone three years of training and is sent to work in the community at their own risk. Here, there is no support team behind you that you can call for help in a critical situation. And you don’t sit with the hosts by the fireplace, and you don’t have the outlet of deep conversations with colleagues during a lunch break. And there is generally no one around to simply ask: Do you think I’m wrong? These notes are dedicated to the most heartbreaking, scandalous, and frankly inhumane situations that Rachel has encountered during her time working in the National Health Service in the UK.