2 minute read
Mums back
Back to work
Three women return to frontline NHS roles in new ITV1 drama
TV feature by Sarah Olowofoyeku
THE hospital ward was empty and
she was running through the corridors … in her pyjamas. That was the nightmare that woke Dr Maryam Afridi (Parminder Nagra) in the first episode of Maternal on ITV1. The next morning was her first day back as a paediatrics doctor, after two years of maternity leave. As a result of staff shortages, she was put in charge on day one, which was against protocol and may have resulted in a fatal mistake.
In episode two, scheduled to be broadcast on Monday (23 January), Maryam’s anxiety – made worse by the incident – threatens to affect her work. She questions whether she can still do the job.
Maryam is one of three doctors returning to work in Manchester’s City General Hospital after maternity leave, juggling the challenges of motherhood and their taxing professional roles in the NHS.
The return to hospital for registrar and mum-of-three Dr Helen Cavendish (Lisa McGrillis) has been tough, not just because of the demands of frontline medicine, but because she is doing ward rounds with her husband, Guy (Oliver Chris), and the woman he had an affair with.
On Monday the family drama escalates when Helen’s estranged sister, Debbie, arrives on the ward and is confronted by Guy, who doesn’t want her to have anything to do with him, Helen or their children.
In another part of the hospital, surgeon Catherine MacDiarmid (Lara Pulver) is still trying to find a way back into the operating theatre. She needs to accumulate surgical hours so that she has a chance of landing a consultancy role. But having been out of the male-dominated world of surgery for nine months, she’s at a disadvantage. The three women are at their wits’ ends and facing impossible choices,
but they have to keep going. While Maternal is a TV drama, the struggles experienced by the working mothers are real. All three lead actresses can relate to the subject. Lisa McGrillis says: ‘It’s a show about women returning to work and we were all in a similar boat, being parents outside of trying to work on quite a busy filming schedule.’ Writer Jacqui Honess-Martin says the inspiration for the drama came from her own struggle in returning to work. ‘Speaking to my friends, I realised that everyone else was having the same experience,’ she says. It’s comforting to know that we are not alone in our difficult experiences. We may be dealing with the stresses of work, the impact of systemic failure, the highs and lows of interpersonal relationships, or all of them at once. Many such struggles are nothing new. Similarly relatable drama can be found in the Bible, which tells real-life stories of women and men dealing with anxiety, fraught relationships and systemic injustices. The accounts show that God can help – sometimes through a miraculous change in circumstance, but sometimes simply with the fulfilled promise of his presence and the hope of a better future. Family issues seep into work for Whatever the story of our lives, we can married couple Helen and Guy put our confidence in a God who will be with us round the clock.
