Professor Jane Sandall CBE
Professor of Social Science & Women’s Health, Kings College London
Ceremony: 15 October 2019, 5:30pm - Faculty of Health, Graduate School of Health
Speech
Vice Chancellor, the Chancellor, the council, staff, distinguished guests, graduates and their families and friends. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge, the traditional learning is a land where we meet today and paint my respects to the elders past and present. I'm honoured to be here today, onto such an important day for you and your families. They've supported you through university and I congratulate you on your achievement.
Education transforms lives. For example, we know educating girls is one of the best ways to reduce maternal mortality across the world. Maternal and infant health is talked about as a gender issue and I celebrate that. It's a hot political topic globally, because how we treat women and girls is a reflection about wider society. I'm a midwife. For me, midwifery is still the best job in the world. The privilege of being with women and their families on a journey to parenthood, and the magic of being there when a baby is born will never ever go away. When we have a child, we create parents, we create grandparents and aunts and uncles. We know from our research as a researchers here at UTS, that what happens to us in pregnancy and how we birth has a profound impact on the health of mothers and babies and their families. And we also know that birth can be a time of healing and a catalyst to reconnect with our families and communities.
Many people will say, why do you need to do research? I'm having a baby, because women have been saying this for millennia. In response, I would ask why pregnancy and birth is handled so differently across the world. For universal human condition, we have so many different ways and different countries. We need to look at the unintended consequences of what we do when we interfere with this finely tuned process. We need to provide birth services that enhance the experience as a safety of birth. Globally, maternity and reproductive health care has a track record of doing harm with the best intentions. When I graduated as a midwife, a long time ago in the mid-eighties, there was no internet. If we wished to question the evidence of what was done, for some of the practices we saw, the only way we could do was to go to a medical library and we needed a doctor's letter to get access to that library.
The internet has changed, absolutely transformed, how we access knowledge and how the public access knowledge. A paper published in the USA or UK will be hitting the Sydney Morning Herald the same day. It is so different. It was women who started this debate by questioning practice, and for me the lesson was clear, we should always listen to women and their families. We should have good reasons when we interfere with an actual process, and we should look for the consequences when we do. For me, a university education transformed my life and I was the first in my family to go to university, as I suspect there’ll be people in this room. I did my undergraduate degree in social sciences, part-time while working, and I had the support of my family for child-care and work to pay for leave, for which I am deeply, deeply grateful.
Many of you have had the same challenges and today is a time to thank all these people around you. You were fortunate to have a university education, and being taught how to think. So never stop asking questions, and being curious throughout your life. So thank you for the opportunity for speaking to you today and congratulations on your achievement and congratulations to all your families and friends.
About the Speaker
Professor Jane Sandall CBE is a professor at King’s College, London where she leads a Maternal Health Services and Policy Research Group in King’s Health Partners Women’s Health Academic Centre. She also has a clinical background in Midwifery and is trained as a Social Scientist.
Professor Sandall’s work focuses on social and cultural shaping of maternal health policy, social science perspectives on health, comparative health policy analysis and evaluation of complex interventions.
Recognised as a global leader in midwifery, Professor Sandall has made, and continues to make, a significant contribution to improvements in maternity care across the world, influencing the development of maternity services in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Europe and Brazil.
She is currently a member of the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists Intrapartum Clinical Studies Group, Royal College of Midwives Board, and the National Childbirth Trust Research Advisory Group.
Professor Sandall holds a degree in Social Science from London’s South Bank University, and a Masters of Science in Medical Sociology from the Royal Holloway University of London. She also holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology from the University of Surrey.
Professor Sandall has been an Adjunct Professor at UTS since 2007. In 2014 UTS awarded her a Doctor of Health Sciences (honoris causa) in recognition of her outstanding achievements as a global leader in midwifery and her commitment as a leading interdisciplinary researcher in the areas of midwifery, medicine, sociology and management.
In 2017 Professor Sandall was named a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her services to midwifery and women's health.
