I don't often post on here but this thread has my blood boiling. I went in to hospital after my water broke late at night and was admitted for observation in antenatal ward. But DH and my birth partner were sent home at around midnight, so I was forced to go through labour through the night on my own.
I was in so much pain and it seemed there was only one midwife who was tending to everyone. I was told to have a warm bath when contractions started, then moved on to gas and air, after that no one else came to see me, despite buzzing repeatedly to ask for stronger pain relief.
Only when the morning staff came did I get examined and was told I should have been in the labour ward much earlier as I was nearly fully dilated. I wanted a water birth but there was just no time to fill up the pool. Luckily, we live not too far from the hospital so DH was able to rush down and arrived just in time for birth of DD.
It was very frightening and horrible going through labour on my own, although it was mercifully short. To make matters worse, the lady next door to my bed was allowed to have her partner in there or had somehow managed to get him to stay. I felt it would be mean to ask how come she had her DP there and mine wasn't allowed, so didn't say anything, but desperately wished I had someone there to comfort me.
Post-natal care was pretty dire too, I had a third degree tear (student midwife who had NO clue and luckily one of my birth partners was my sis-in-law who has had two kids, she got me through the whole thing) and had to have spinal block and diamorphine for pain relief after, which made me itch like a crack addict on a come down!
That first night was one of the worst nights of my life as I was in a VERY noisy ward with my poor DD trying to sleep and being woken up every minute and me itching all over and very uncomfortable. I asked for BF help but no one came and one midwife, she seemed to be in charge, came on to the ward charging about and talking at the top of her voice, waking up the babies and generally being a PITA.
Although, reading some of the experiences posted here, sounds like I got off pretty lightly. Just wanted to vent about that really and I think a campaign is an excellent idea.