Appalling care on maternity ward
I had strep g sepsis, so did my baby. I ended up having an emergency c-section and baby was taken straight to NICU. I was in hospital for 11days. The midwife on the labour ward was amazing as were all the neonatal staff - I would have been truly lost without them. However the care on the maternity ward was appalling. I honestly dread having to go back if I ever have another baby. I had been in the day before because baby wasn’t moving, on the way to the hospital my waters broke. The lady examined me and then said ‘i did a sweep while I was up there.’ I didn’t realise this could increase the risk of infection once my waters had broken. She said to come back at 7pm the next day for induction If labour hadn’t started before then. She also said to come back if I felt ill, but don’t just pretend because some people pretend to feel ill so they can come back earlier. So when I went back the next day I already felt like I shouldn’t be there - but it’s lucky I was as I deteriorated very quickly and baby’s heart rate was racing. - I was put on a ward where everyone else had their babies without knowing what would happen to mine. I knew he was seriously ill but nothing else. We were waiting for tests. - Over the next two days, every new person that came in asked if I had had a vaginal birth (I had to explain to at least three people what had happened.) No one even acknowledged that my baby wasn’t there or showed any awareness of how Ill he was or seemed to care how I was doing. Very few of the staff were personable at a time I felt very vulnerable - it was the cleaners and people bringing the tea that bothered to talk to me the most. - I had no idea what had happened to me and neither did the three three midwives I asked, on day 7 I demanded to speak to a doctor as I wanted to know what I had and what had happened to me. - I asked about what to do with my dressing, one midwife said leave it on and another said take it off on day 5 and check underneath. Mixed messages meant I didn’t know what to do - I used google to decide. - I was in neonatal a lot so often missed the drugs rounds and had to go and ask for them. When I expressed concern about missing antibiotics, she said ‘I will try to come back when you’re here, but if I forget, come and remind me.’ I said that I could be back at the times she came round, but often they were half an hour or more late and I had to go back to NICU. - Someone tried to give my antibiotics to someone else with the same name in the next bed, I had to shout through the curtain. - I went for a short walk around the hospital one day and my husband stayed with the baby. When I came back, a midwife told me that my baby had been taken to NICU for a transfusion. I panicked and asked what she meant and she said ‘probably blood.’ This seemed strange so I ran to the NICU and they had in fact told her on the phone it was for an ‘infusion’ of antibiotics. - My notes were covered in scribble- one doctor said she couldn’t read them! One doctor would put me on oral antibiotics and the next would change to IV and then they changed back again - they couldn’t seem to agree. - I was told I could go home after a few days, but obviously my baby couldn’t, so I said I couldn’t leave without him. (Advice given to me by the NICU staff as I was breastfeeding) the next day I was crying and said I just wanted to be at home (to my partner and overheard by a midwife) and the response was ‘well you can go home, you’re here out of choice.’ Which was ridiculous and showed complete disregard to the fact I obviously wanted to be at home with a healthy baby. That comment made me feel horrible. - After this, I became ill. Sepsis symptoms resurfaced and I really didn’t feel well. I told a member of staff who passed by and she just said I was probably just tired. It got worse and I staggered to the desk, I could hardly walk. Then someone took my temperature and it had spiked, so I went back on IV antibiotics for 48 hours and was told that I could no longer leave. However, that night a midwife came with oral antibiotics (I still had the canuler in) and I said I thought I was meant to be having IV, but she said another doctor had changed my notes, so I cried and said I could have gone home then! (My baby was allowed home at this point, but I just had to bring him back in everyday for IV antibiotics until he’d had 14 days) so the midwife got the doctor on call, who reviewed the notes and said that it in fact made sense to stay on the IV for the rest of the 48 hours, so switched me back! The overall feeling on the ward was one of apathy, like you were a burden rather than one of care when some women are at their most vulnerable.