Scotland's Health Awards 2025: The 'compassionate' midwife on Orkney helping parents deal with intense loss
Nominations are open for the Midwife of the Year honour at the 2025 Scotland’s Health Awards.
It is a role typically described as one of the busiest in healthcare and critical to the smooth operation of Scotland’s busiest maternity hospitals situated across the Central Belt.
But on Orkney - more than 300 miles north of Edinburgh - midwife Melissa Lindsay has proven herself to be just as critical a lynchpin in a tightly-knit community.
The compassion and dedication of Ms Lindsay was recognised in being crowned Midwife of the Year at last year’s Scotland’s Health Awards, hosted by The Scotsman.
“It’s just incredible,” Ms Lindsay said after winning the award.
“Working as a midwife is a privilege anyway, so to be recognised for doing a job like that is just amazing. And it’s a privilege also to look after the women and families of Orkney, who are a wonderful community.”
Ms Lindsay added: “I love my job as an integrated midwife ... working in a remote and rural setting relies on excellent teamwork and we are fortunate to have a fantastic team.”
A member of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) who qualified as a midwife in 1998, Ms Lindsay leads the National Care Bereavement Pathway on Orkney, delivering difficult news with empathy to those parents dealing with pregnancy or baby loss.
She returned to practice in 2017 after taking several years off to bring up her own children. Ms Lindsay went on to complete her sonographer training in 2019.
Jaki Lambert, director of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) in Scotland, said of Ms Lindsay’s award win: “Melissa, a compassionate midwife and sonographer, who leads the National Bereavement Care Pathway implementation across Orkney, ensures that families receive all the care they need at such a difficult time. Her dedication to bereavement support and the Baby Loss Wave of Light Ceremony impacts the community profoundly.”
The Wave of Light ceremony held annually on October 15 invites families to light a candle at 7pm local time and leave it burning for at least one hour to remember all those babies who have died too soon.
Ms Lindsay was one of three staff members nominated from Orkney, in a reflection of the level of health care delivered on one of Scotland’s most remote group of islands.
Macmillan specialist nurse Anne Gregg and Amanda Manson, a cardiology specialist nurse, were also separately nominated for the Nurse of the Year Award.
The award won by Ms Lindsay recognises an individual midwife or team of midwives providing excellent, evidence-based NHS maternity services and care in Scotland.
Other award categories include care for mental health, as well as awards for the doctor, nurse, top team, volunteers, young achiever, Allied Health Professional, midwife and leader of the year.
The Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing, GCU (School of Health and Life Sciences), and Alpha Solway: Skytech are all sponsoring individual awards.
Nominations close on Sunday, August 17, but readers will have until October to vote on this year’s Readers’ Choice Award, which is hand-selected by the public themselves.
The awards ceremony and gala dinner will be held at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange on Thursday, November 6. Nominations can be submitted online at scotlandshealthawards.co.uk.
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.