[lettie]

I wear a wristwatch for work. It's not frowned upon these days but it is understood that you will remove your watch when washing your hands to perform a procedure. It is acceptable to wear cardigans in community clinics, a midwife is highly unlikely to be performing any kind of sterile procedure in these clinics. It is unacceptable to wear a cardigan on delivery suite and on the wards. Accy Vic is a community clinic, they don't wear cardies on the wards. Shirtsleeves should be rolled up prior to procedures, but you will find that most sterile procedures, dressings, catheters, TPN etc are performed on the wards rather than in a clinic.

The midwives at these clinics work on the community. It's freezing when you're going from clinic to clinic and house to house in the winter. If they weren't allowed cardigans they wouldn't do the job. Some people's houses are freezing when we go in and many of the houses that I used to visit with my case load were also filthy. I remember having to nip home on several occasions to wash my hands and change clothes after being in some of these houses.