How clean was your hospital?

[mumfor1sttime]

Following on from the news of hospitals not being clean enough - just wondered about your views?
btw - the hospital I stayed in was lousy - toilets were filthy and I wasnt shown where to put my rubbish/dirty nappies or dirty laundry. There were also no clean covers for my ds crib, so I got dh to bring blankets in from home.Had to walk from recovery room to the ward including stairs after c section- to find no bed....the list is too long!

[nannyjo]

the Great western in swindon was fantastically clean (to the eye) but it is only a couple of years old!

[mumfor1sttime]

The hospital I am talking about is only 2.5 years old!!

[jessicaandbumpsmummy]

hospital i had jess in seemed ok - was just very busy. didnt really experience toilets all that much due to catheter and then i was so high on love for jess that i was straight in and out again!

when staying at another hospital when i had my appendix out a few months ago, the cleaners were great, until it came to toilets.... they were filthy. The ward was swept and mopped 2-3 times a day, all the beds changed daily, and the lockers etc wiped round twice a day. It was only the toilet floors that let it down.

[charleepeters]

I was at St Richards in Chichester - i persnally have had so may bad experiences at that hospital one which was horrifying - but no it wasnt clean at all - when the put in my drip blood went on the floor it was still there when i left a week later

[nannyjo]

thats terrible!! i was really impressed i have to say and am quite looking forward to baby no.2 (noy yet though)

What a shame, it must have spoilt things for you. i was in a week and that would have driven me mad!!

[charleepeters]

I was in about 6 months of my pg in and out - unfortunatly its the only hospital near by otherwise it would be my last choice, in the past i have suffered gross misconduct twice. the beds were changed ect but the floors wernt swept/cleaned ect, but i am bias i hate it there its a horrible place.

[mumfor1sttime]

My covers were never changed on my bed. And I cant recall seeing any cleaners, I was in for 3 days.

[nannyjo]

the cleaners were in all the time in fact they ended up getting on my nerves sweeping under my feet all the time!

[charleepeters]

one time i was in the surgery ward (i hadnt had surgery they were lacking in beds!) anyway my covers didnt get changed for 8 days and i had blood on them - you would have thought hygeine was especially important in a surgery ward! the maternity beds got changed daily though.

[SofiaAmes]

Filthy and not cleaned once in the 3 days I was in for my first. Marginally better for my second.

[highlander]

MF1sttime - you had to walk from the theatre recovery area to the postnatal ward? Surely your spinal would barely have worn off, if at all?

[Fran1]

I stayed in a hospital which was only a few years old. It was ok, the biggest problem was short staffed. My midwife was fab, but she wasn't with me much because she was off delivering other babies.

I had dd at 2pm and stayed in delivery room until i went home about midnight. In that time noone cleared up the mess left over from delivery. e.g bed sheets, disposable mats that collect the mess or even the pot that collected mess whilst i was being stitched .

I am sorry that is far too much info for this time of the morning isn't it!!

[dizietsma]

Having worked in my local hospital I am all too aware of the poor standard of cleanliness, so much so that it was one of the factors in my decision to have a home birth. Much less chance of catching MRSA at home!

The problem in my hospital is that the cleaning is contracted out and no one cleaner ever regularly cleans one area so it is difficult for departments and wards to hold any one person responsible for poor work. Plus, the cleaning staff get paid minimum wage and frankly I'm not surprised they do such a bad job- if I had to do a minimum wage job I think I take burger flipping at McDonalds before I'd clean up other people's vomit, blood and poop!

[NomDePlume]

Mine was brand new, opened in the March and I had DD early the following August. It seemed to be pretty clean tbh, but I didn't spend my very short stay inspecting behind cupboards etc, TBH.

[SenoraPostrophe]

Spain - room not cleaned while I was there, toilets for parents of children on the children's ward were clean, but 2 flights of stairs away - no sinks for parents and no attempt to isolate the little girl in the next bed who had been admitted with nasty gastroenteritis - not even a warning.

It's not just the UK. Spanish hospitals have quite a good reputation and are forever being visited by Tory MPs keen to replicate the private/public system they have here.

[Tommy]

When I was in with DS1, my sheets were changed every day while we had breakfast (It was a small cottage hospital with 4 beds in the maternity unit). 20 months later when I had DS2 I was in the same hospital and was told my sheets were only changed after I'd left - I was there for 2 nights and leaked quite a bit on the first night so had to sleep in bloodied sheets for the second night

[NomDePlume]

Tommy, that's disgusting. I'd have insisted they change the sheets. How horrid

[lilaclotus]

the hospital (qmc in nottingham) inside was pretty clean. no complaints there. but... i remember lying in bed on the ward while in labour and seeing dead pigeons hanging off these grids on the side of the building. had to close the curtains to get rid of that sight.

[bakedpotato]

There was a sink near my bed (side room) which was cleaned once a day, and the bins were emptied regularly, but the loos and showers were unspeakable

[YeahBut]

Cleanliness at the hospital where I had dd1 (Chelsea and Westminster in London) was obviously a consideration far down the list. It was disgusting - loos and showers in particular. Never had my sheets changed. AND they were chronically short staffed - they had to shut a 6 bed post natal unit and send women in labour away to other hospitals because they didn't have enough nurses and midwives to cover their care. Women who'd had c-sections were being discharged after 3 days so they could free up beds. All in all, an appalling experience that I refused to even consider going through again until we'd left the UK. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have had that choice.

What amazes me is that this is such a widespread problem and no-one has done anything about it. My sister-in-law had her first in the midlands and was so appalled by standards and care there that she opted for a home birth for her second.

[expatinscotland]

Mine was okay. But not as clean as my house. But then again, I'm a neatfreak insomniac daughter of a former Army drill sergeant who would rather clean than sleep.

This time, I'm hoping to come home from the delivery suite. I'll probably go into labour cleaning the bathroom and kitchen one last time . . .

[Willow2]

My one abiding memory of the Chelsea and Westminster's cleanliness levels was somebody else's large (huge) blood clot that lay in the plug hole of one of the baths for the entire nine days that I was there. Charming.

[Lonelymum]

The hospital toilets I had dd in were DISGUSTING. I was glad I had a catheter for the first night, but then was told I had to empty it myself - the loos were dirtier than the worst public toilets I have ever been in. I only did one wee in them, to convince the staff I was functioning again after the catheter came out, and then I was home like a shot!

This was 5 years ago so I don't mind saying which hospitla it was - Kings College, London.

The hospitals I had my ds's in were much better, but not perfect either.