Jenny Morgans was born to be a midwife
After 34 years as a Monash Health midwife, Jenny Morgans is entering retirement. She has dedicated much of her life to midwifery, through her clinical work and educating other midwives.
Jenny has been instrumental in delivering educational workshops for midwives across Monash Health in emergency and pregnancy care. She has also run educational programs for graduate midwives and co-led Practical Obstetric Multi Professional Training (PROMPT) for the last 11 years.
Jenny initially trained as a nurse in 1978 before realising that she wasn’t enjoying nursing as much as expected.
“I thought I can’t keep coming to a job I don’t really like that much. I have to try another career”.
During her nursing training at Prince Henry’s Hospital, she found that she enjoyed midwifery and decided that to pursue it as a career.
“My thoughts were that if I didn’t like midwifery, then I’m going to have to get out and try a completely different career. But from almost day one, I just loved it. I thought, ‘Oh, I should have done this earlier’.”
Jenny found the career she loved, and the love she has for her job is shown in the way she talks about her experiences as a midwife.
Jenny expressed how unique and special every birth is and how rewarding it is to be a midwife:
“Midwife means ‘with woman’, and that’s what we do. We are there during their pregnancy, during birth and afterwards. I can’t tell you the privilege of being with someone giving birth to a baby, it’s just such a privilege.”
For the past 34 years, Jenny has been at Dandenong Hospital and has described her colleagues as “a big family”.
“I love the people at Monash Health more than anything, and I love Dandenong Hospital. When I started, Dandenong was a relatively a small community hospital until it was incorporated in Monash Health when career and learning options increased.”
This is when Jenny had the opportunity to experience various positions such as ‘Clinical Midwife Specialist’, ‘Associate Midwifery Manager’, ‘Co-ordinator of Maternity services at Springvale Community Health Service’, ‘Clinical Coach’ and the ‘Clinical Midwife Educator’.”
“Monash Health also supported me when I returned to study for Maternal & Child Health Nursing and my Master of Clinical Midwifery.”
When asked about how many babies she has helped deliver over the years, Jenny said she has lost count! “It would be a lot of babies. One of the younger midwives I worked with came up to me one day and told me that I was her mother’s midwife when she was born, so that was quite funny.”
Jenny has many plans for her retirement, including some volunteer work, travel and making wine with her husband from their homegrown grapes.
“I’ll really miss everybody at Monash Health, particularly Dandenong Hospital. I work with a great bunch of people.”
We wish Jenny all the best in her retirement!
