The Prison Doctor: Women Inside. Dr Amanda Brown
She continued to tell me about their daily routine, down to the finest detail, with Reg featuring in every element of her day. I felt for Gloria. Her sentence was years, not months, and it was going to be hard for her to adjust, assuming she ever would.
Thirty minutes later, I had completed her notes on the computer and prescribed everything she would need for the time being. She looked relieved but nervous.
‘They will get my pills to me on time, won’t they?’ she asked, her eyes flicking from me to the computer and back again.
For many women, the fact they are not allowed to keep their medication with them, that it is handed out by the nurses, is another loss of liberty.
‘The nurses will give your medication to you each day,’ I explained. ‘Once you are settled, you will have an in-possession risk assessment – it’s called an IPRA – to see if you can look after your own medication. But up until then, I’m afraid you’ll just have to go to the nurses for it.’
She looked resigned to the fact that there was nothing she could say to alter the situation.
She added: ‘The other thing is I also suffer from claustrophobia. I hate being in lifts, and any small space, in fact. Even being in this room makes me feel nervous.’
Gloria’s new home would be a small cell, with only enough space for a narrow bed, sink, desk and a toilet. With a door that would be locked. And many doors would be locked behind that door.
As I finished my shift that evening and walked across the car park to make my way home around the M25, I wondered how Gloria, Rebecca and Shannon, and the other women I had met that night, would cope with the new phase of their lives. How prepared they would be for the many challenges they might face, and how they would handle them.
‘I know I am being punished but I don’t want my child to be punished too’
‘Just look at his tiny fingers.’
I was sitting in the little consulting room in the Healthcare wing one morning during my regular clinic. In front of me was a new mother gazing into her buggy. Inside the buggy was the most beautiful baby, his face all scrunched up, his fists clenched and hot cheeks glowing. His eyes twitched and opened momentarily like he was having the most vivid and exhilarating dream. At four weeks old, the smattering of milk spots on his nose, cheeks and forehead, a common and completely normal skin condition that babies get, were starting to fade. Megan had tucked him in carefully, with a soft grey blanket decorated with ducks, covering him to his chest. On his head, he was wearing a knitted blue hat.
‘He’s gorgeous, Megan. I’m really happy for you.’ I smiled at her. ‘Congratulations.’
‘I never thought I could love something as much as I love him,’ she continued, looking tenderly at him. ‘Dylan has made me want to be a better person, to do better, y’know?’
I nodded.
As a mother, of course I knew. There is something about having children that makes most people determined to be the best versions of themselves they can possibly be.
My regular GP clinic at Bronzefield does not discriminate. In addition to dealing with lots of drug and alcohol issues, patients arrive with a whole selection of medical complaints, some more serious than others. From time to time, this includes new mothers, who enter my clinic with their little charges in tow. They are just like any other mothers of newborns outside prison: usually exhausted and often with grey shadows under their eyes, sometimes pale and feeling sore after the birth, but more often than not, completely in love with their babies.
She brushed her hand through her cropped, dyed red hair and gazed lovingly at her son.
‘I do feel guilty he’s been born while I’m in here,’ she added. ‘I don’t want him to hate me for it when he’s older. But I’m going to make it up to him. Do better. I know I’m being punished but I don’t want him to be punished too. I’m trying to make the best of it.
‘My room on the MBU is great, I love it there. I’ve made it really cosy and Dylan has his little corner with all his stuff. I never knew babies could get through so many nappies and clothes!’
Alongside the house blocks at Bronzefield is an established twelve-room Mother and Baby Unit (MBU). As well as rooms for single babies, there is one room specifically designed for mothers of twins, taking the child capacity to thirteen. This allows women who give birth while they are in prison to stay with their children until they are 18 months old.
Megan had moved to the unit as soon as she returned from hospital just after she had given birth.
‘I was like a whale before Dylan was born, my bump got to a room five minutes before I did,’ she laughed. ‘I was enormous!’
‘How was the birth?’ I asked.
‘I went by ambulance to the local hospital. It was a bit weird, having the officers there with me, but at least I didn’t have to be cuffed to them. The rules have changed, apparently,’ she said.
‘They were outside the room and I was screaming and shouting so much I had a sore throat afterwards! They were nice though, and joked that their ears were ringing when it was all finally over.’ She then smiled sadly. ‘I could choose a birthing partner to be with me, and I’d have loved my mum to be with me, y’know, or my sister, but they live too far away.
‘I can’t wait for them to meet him at next month’s Stay and Play Day at the MBU. Mum is absolutely desperate to meet him.
‘The birth went on for hours. It was so painful, I thought I was gonna die,’ she said, rhythmically pushing her buggy backwards and forwards in the tiny room. ‘Honestly, it’s a bit of a blur now. But he’s okay, and that’s all that matters, really, isn’t it?’
‘Of course it is, you’ve done really well… I hope you’re managing to get as much rest as you can. It’s so important,’ I told her. ‘So, how can I help you today, Megan?’
‘It’s my tits. They’ve both been a bit sore, but now the left one’s red and feels rock hard and like it’s on fire. It’s really painful too!’
‘Okay, let’s have a look and see what’s going on. Can you lie down on the couch and let me examine you?’
Megan lay down and then pulled up her Nike jumper and released her breasts from the greying nursing bra.
‘The bra ain’t very sexy – one of the other mums on the MBU gave it to me, but at least there’s no one else to see it, thank goodness,’ she laughed.
‘Don’t I count?’ I smiled.
Her left breast was engorged, red, and felt hot to touch. Her nipple was also cracked and tender.
‘It’s agony when I feed him,’ she explained. I popped the thermometer in her ear and took her temperature, which was slightly raised. It was clear that she had mastitis, an infection that occurs in the tissue of the breast, most commonly during breast-feeding.
‘Are you still managing to breast-feed him?’ I asked her.
‘Yeah, all he wants to do all the time is feed, feed, feed. He’s a right greedy guts!’ she said. ‘It took a while to get the hang of it, and my god, my tits were a mess at the start – but we got there in the end.’
‘You look like you’ve been doing a brilliant job,’ I told her. ‘He is a really good size.’
She beamed at me with a wide smile, proud as punch. ‘Yeah, he’s put on 200 grams this week… I feel close to him when I feed him. Loads of the other girls don’t wanna do it, say it messes up your body and going on formula is easier. But I’m gonna try to stick with it, at least while I can.’
‘Good