THIRTY YEARS OF DELIVERING MARLBURIANS Words: Kat Duggan
Marlborough gynaecologist and obstetrician Helen Crampton has been able to get back into old passions, like playing the flute, since retiring last month.
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or more than three decades, Helen Crampton has been a fixture at Wairau Hospital, spending days, nights, weekends, weekdays and holidays delivering Marlborough babies. Last month, the obstetrician and gynecologist left the maternity ward for the last time, retiring early to spend more time enjoying the Marlborough lifestyle. At the peak of her career, as a ‘young and energetic’ specialist, Helen was delivering up to 200 babies a year. “It’s been a very satisfying career,” she says. Initially setting out to become a surgeon, Helen was working in the Emergency Department at Wellington Hospital when she encountered a difficult obstetrics case. “I decided [then] to do a diploma in obstetrics and I fell in love with it from there. At the time it was very different; it was difficult to get into the training programme,” she says. “It was a male dominated career and I was told point blank that it was far too hard for
a woman to do…so I went ahead and I got accepted into the programme and now here I am.” Helen met her husband John on a tramping trip in the Nelson Lakes, and later made the move to Marlborough, beginning her career at Wairau Hospital in 1988.
“A highlight would be being there at the moment of delivery for a couple who had struggled with infertility … being there and sharing their joy at that special moment, that was always a very special time.” Working in a small town for so long also meant delivering two generations of one family became inevitable.
A lover of the outdoors, Helen knew the region would be a fantastic place to raise her family; the job was the icing on the cake.
“I have delivered babies of the babies… You always enjoy when someone comes in and says ‘mum said you delivered me’,” Helen says.
“The first thing was [figuring out] how was I going to combine my career with motherhood. I subsequently had three children, and I had a very supportive husband and you sort of make it work.”
While highly rewarding, Helen says her career has not been without stressful moments, and she is relieved to be free of the pressure that comes with it.
With John’s help, Helen balanced being on call, working late nights and weekends for 31 years. She recently made the decision to step back. “The demands of being called out urgently at night and continuing the next day; I was certainly finding increasingly challenging; it wasn’t a problem when I was young. “Once you hit your 60s, being on call becomes particularly challenging.” Throughout her long career Helen has met thousands of mums and babies. There are some she will never forget. “You always remember the ones that cause you more worry; there are mums you never forget,” Helen says.
“There’s a commitment to get it right 100 per cent of the time, and that doesn’t always happen, so it’s extremely stressful for you, and for the person, when something hasn’t gone well,” she says. “But that’s the nature of surgery and I am relieved to be free of that potential stress.” Helen and John have established a B&B in their home in Springlands and have already met some wonderful people since opening for bookings. “I’m a people person and I still want to make a difference in other people’s lives, and that’s enabling me to do that,” Helen says. “I’m very contented in this new way of life.”
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