Dr Muir Wallace holding the baby at the Waikato Hospital Emergency Department. Muir was the only one able to settle the baby after several other ED staff tried. Photo / Waikato DHB, Facebook
Dr Muir Wallace holding the baby at the Waikato Hospital Emergency Department. Muir was the only one able to settle the baby after several other ED staff tried. Photo / Waikato DHB, Facebook
The humble doctor who comforted a baby on his shoulder while single-handedly running Waikato Hospital's emergency department says he's no baby whisperer and being a stand-in child or grandparent minder is just part of the job.
Waikato District Health Board ED consultant Dr Muir Wallace usually runs a mile the other way when a camera comes out, which is why he didn't even realise the photo of him cradling the sleeping child had been taken until it later popped up on the ED's internal Facebook page.
That heart-warming post was then shared on the Waikato DHB's public Facebook page on Thursday, with praise for the kind but private doctor. The moment was even picked up by overseas media, leaving Wallace "bemused" at how quickly it had escalated.
Wallace was at the stage in his shift where he was in front of the computer going through notes when the crying baby was handed to him.
Several nurses had already tried settling the baby while their mother went for tests, but had been called away, so he was the next available pair of hands, the father-of-four teenagers said.
"But there's no great baby-whispering skills in that."
Wallace was surprised an act that was a common occurrence in both the ED and in the hospital's wards had gone viral.
"If there's a kid that's a little bit upset they will get passed around until someone can settle them. I kind of just got left holding the baby at the end of the queue sort of thing. It was probably worn out by the time it got to me."
Parents often brought their children into ED with them and staff always stepped in if there was no one else to help.
"We become children minders and grandparent minders. We function sometimes as surrogate parents ... we kind of hold the fort until someone can take over."
While his own children had been a long time out of nappies and he hadn't calmed a baby for a while, part of his job was interacting with children and babies all the time.
He held the baby for a maximum 30 minutes while its mother had tests in another area of the hospital before handing the child back to her. The baby woke at this point.
"I think the baby may have been a little on the hungry side and that was what was causing the irritation more than anything else."
Although he was overwhelmed by the response from the post and had taken "a bit of stick" from colleagues, he said they were relieved the DHB was in the media for something positive.
"It's nice to see something nice, I suppose, instead of seeing someone run over or shot or any of those types of things and it's fair to say our particular DHB has a little bit of negative press in recent times so it is nice to be in the news for a good reason rather than a bad reason.
"I'm hoping it's the 15 minutes of fame and this is my 14 minutes."
Mike Haden-Jones, a clinical nurse specialist at Waikato Hospital's ED who posted the photo on the Waikato DHB's Facebook page, said he knew the photo was special and showed the different side of what staff did.
"I could walk around the hospital for weeks with a camera and never get another picture like that. It was just perfect - Muir, the baby looking so comfortable and the story behind it as well.
"Muir was on duty that day and there are 20 other consultants in ED, and to be honest most of them would have probably done the same thing as well ... He's a lovely guy and totally deserving of all the praise that he's getting, so it's great."
Haden-Jones said he was overwhelmed by the positive response from the post which had even been spotted by his UK-based mother on the Daily Mail's website.
He is leading a three-month trial of posting messages from the ED on the Waikato DHB's page in a bid to better engage and educate the public. The trial has only been running for one month, but he is hoping it will be extended after the number of followers on the Waikato DHB's page has increased by 783 per cent in the past seven days. Last night the post had reached more than 50,000 and had received almost 6000 clicks, comments or shares.
