To think it is very insensitive to site the gynae unit in plain view of the antenatal clinic?

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

I'm here for fairly straightforward reasons, but for someone with with serious problems which could affect their fertility, or who have to have a hysterectomy at a young age, like the woman who I was sitting next to on my last visit, it must be torture to sit in a waiting room full of happy expectant mothers.

This is a common problem. It is most effective if the areas are reasonably close together because the same staff do work across them and the less time lost trekking the corridors the more time given to patient care BUT you do hear of some really awful, thoughtless placing. In my local hospital maternity and scbu ae next to one another and mums can get from maternity in to scbu without going 'outside', Very good. EPADS is on the gynae ward so well away from antenatal and maternity as it sist sort of between the two BUT which ever way you walk in to it you have to walk past the entrance to either maternity or antenatal. What is really poor imo though is the lay out of antenatal. The waiting area is surrounded by scan and consultation rooms ith no buffer at all. So if something goes wrong you have to walk out of the room straight in to the faces of the pregnant women. In both my second and third pregnancies I sat in that waiting area able to hear women crying desperately in the rooms adjacent. In my second pregnancy I was sitting there whilst midwives hurried in and out of the room with pads and other equipment and when the woman was bought out, on a bed, crying desperately it was to an audience of highly traumatised mums to be. Then she was taken off down to the ward which again you can get to avoiding the public corridor. The waiting area makes it irrelevant though. I have NO idea why somebody didn't think to ask us to move before they bought her out.

When I had my first MC i was living in Milton Keynes and that was one of the good things about that hospital. The EPU was nowhere near maternity it was just off general outpatients. The only scanning that took place there was early pregnancy viability scanning.
When I went in for the ERPC it was in day surgery - nowhere near maternity wards either. I had to be readmitted a couple of days later and the gynae ward did not seem to be anywhere near the maternity area.

It is possible for hospitals to arrange things better, but Kettering certainly haven't got the memo yet.

Many years ago I was on a hospital ward having just been told that I had a gynaecological condition and would probably have trouble conceiving, in fact would probably never get pregnant (and how wrong that was!). In the next bed there was a woman in for a termination who was just so bright and breezy (at least on the surface) about the whole thing that it brought me to tears. Now I totally support women's right to choose what happens to their bodies, but the cruelty of her being next to me was horrible.

This was not in the UK, by the way. Insensitivity is international.

It's fair enough about the resources and staffing, but would it be so bad for the person planning the hospital to arrange seperate waiting rooms. Maybe put gynae at one end of the facility and antenatal at the other with the facilities in the middle. Or just put a curtain up FGS!

This thread made me laugh. I had my first appt at the gynae unit yesterday to investigate my ongoing unexplained infertility.

The doctor I saw was pregnant ...

Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect her to stop working as a gynae when pg (and indeed would just mean waiting lists get longer). I just thought it was a little ironic.

My hospital has all these depts in one. There is one waiting room. The walls are plastered with posters about the growing baby, breastfeeding, labour options etc. There is one small noticeboard with posters on about cervical and ovarian cancers. And absolutely sweet FA about fertility issues.
The first time I went there was an A5 sign on the wall stating that you could ask to be moved to a separate waiting area (in other words a chair in a corridor) but the next time I went this had gone.
So there I was waiting to discuss how screwed up my reproductive system is, while lots of very pregnant women sat and giggled with their partners/mothers/friends about.
I'm not so bothered about there being pregnant women milling about the dept, but it just felt so bad to shoved in a room with them for 30 mins or more and insulting that a dept that deal with infertility doesn't have any information about it on the walls.

My friend was placed on the ante natal ward while waiting for the induced birth of her stillborn son. She knew he had already died and spent a night there, listening to the heartbeats of all the other babies who were being monitored in utero. The following morning she was paid a visit by the breastfeeding 'counsellor' who asked her why she was not planning to breastfeed. These experiences haunt her now, 7 years on.

Oh betsy that is just awful.

I cried when she told me. I've just got this mental picture of her. I wish I'd known and been able to do something, anything about it.

It's the same thing at our hospital.

When we were told at our scan that our son had died we had to leave through the waiting room filled with other women waiting for their scans, and then through the reception area where women in labour, visitors to the maternity wards and new parents leaving with babies all have to pass through. The women in the waiting room knew, they had seen us taken into the quiet room looking shocked, with me crying and midwifes holding my arms at either side. They saw us come out looking sick and scared and distraught. I felt awful and was worried I was scaring them.

The next time, when we were on the ward and knew we were losing our second baby as well it was the same ward they were bringing women with newborns to from the delivery suite. They put us in a private room but it was in the middle of a corridor surrounded by rooms filled with women and babies. I could hear them, sometimes I could see them, my DH had to walk past them all to get to me. It was very upsetting to say the least. We were there for three days and all night, every night I could hear newborns crying. On the last night it was worse because I knew my daughter would be born and would die the next day and we wouldn't ever hear her cry even once.

I still sometimes have a recurring nightmare about being pregnant again, walking into the waiting room we came through after finding out our son had died, and being told to sit in a certain section reserved for women whose babies are going to die.

Very early in my first pregnancy I also had a small bleed. We went to A&E and they assessed me, them moved me out of the examination room to the corridor by the lift, to make way for some teenage joyriders who had crashed a stolen car. Not badly hurt but very loud and all screaming and crying. It was a very public place to be left alone (DH had gone to the toilet and came back but couldn't find me) and the families of the teenagers kept coming along, looking for their children and shouting and swearing and blaming each other. When they weren't doing that, they entertained themselves by sitting on some chairs nearby and watching me cry. Nobody spoke to me until doctor came passed, asked me why I was there and then told me that I might as well just go home and finish the miscarriage there because there was nothing they could do for me at the hospital.

Resources are one thing but sensitivity is free and it was in short supply that day.

I can't begin to imagine how horrific those experiences must have been for you and your husband. It's just shocking that there is so little regard for women in these already very traumatic situations.

I'm so sorry to hear these stories. As you say, care and sensitivity cost nothing.

I was admitted to hospital during the third trimester of my twins for various complications. They put me in the same antenatal ward they'd already placed a post-natal woman whose twins were in SCBU.

I really hope my presence didn't make it even worse for her than it already was.

Yes. Was in the gynae ward with a miscarriage and could hear babies crying in the maternity ward next door.

At ours the NICU is next to the unit where you get your scans, walking in and out of NICU not knowing it baby DD would survive only to be watched by and in turn watch pregnant women with those fecking bounty packs.

Torture.

I was on a gyn ward suffering from a near death experience with OHSS during a disastrous IVF cycle.

Next to me was a woman recovering from an ectopic and 2 beds down was a teenager in for a termination who celebrated with the nurses and her mother when it was done. You could also hear the severe morning sickness patients throwing up.

Said nurses didn't once come and check on the ectopic patient or me when we cried ourselves to sleep. Think they let the ectopic patient go home on her own on the bus.

Unfortunately I have had a similar experience with my 3rd baby who died. I was put on the obstetric ward to give birth to him in between rooms where I could hear newborns crying. Everytime I left the room to go to the toilet all I could hear was happiness from the other rooms while everything was silent in mine. When we left the next day I will never forget the member of staff who came in whistling and singing
weeks later when we had to go back to receive the post mortem results, we were made to sit in the waiting room for the ante natal clinic, surrounded by pregnant ladies and posters of smiley, healthy babies.

I know it's awful and it breaks my heart to hear these stories, but a little bit of me is comforted that it wasn't just me. Is that wrong? So sorry all. :(

Completely normal unfortunately. Until recently had to go for my post cancer checkups at gynae oncology unit set in the arse end of maternity. You have to run the gauntlet of people coming and going with babies, pregnant mums, the balloon store, and then there is this apologetic little sign for us - the gynae oncology patients. Complete lack of sensitivity.

When I was having my cancer surgery I was in a gynae ward with women having a range of gynae procedures - the worst was the awful questions and nosiness from them/their husbands. The staff were brilliant.

I solved the issue of being in the post-natal ward while DC1 was fighting for her life in the NICU by discharging myself.

I was pinned down for a while by medics requiring me to sign forms agreeing not to sue for any reason whatsoever, but there was absolutely no way I could have stayed.

I was put on a postnatal ward whilst my baby was in neo-natal. I understand resourcing issues, but this was just thoughtlessness - there were other neo mums and we could have been put together but no one thinks and you are in no state either. Just a bit of thought and understanding would have gone a really long way.

So sorry Kal but I am glad something made a small difference to you. Love to all your family and your little daughter.

After my scans showed no featal heart beat in the main hospital - I had to walk accross to the labour ward to be seen by a nurse/midwife. I saw the nurse plus lots of new born babies being wheeled about the place - it was so awful.

when dd was born and nearly died, she ended up in the Icu for babies,

have to say I was treated ok, I was given a room on my own, thank god, as can't imagine what I would have done otherwise.

Before I had the DCs I had to have a colposcopy (to scan for possible early stage cervical cancer). I was in the same central waiting room as ladies having pregnancy scans of various sorts, ladies with infertility problems and the ladies waiting for terminations, one of whom was extraordinarily loud and cheerful about hers and seemed to think that everyone else was in the same position as her. She said to me, as if I was possibly taking the same bus as her to the seaside or something "oh I suppose you're here for your abortion too, love?").

I do remember asking the staff if they could possibly suggest to her that perhaps she might consider that not everyone in the waiting room was as happy as she was at being there - the staff were sympathetic, but there was very little they could do.

I did at least get to choose a different hospital when I was pg myself....I couldn't have stood going back there.

think it's just a question of the best use of resources. I too have sat waiting for a scan to confirm my miscarriage surrounded by pregnant women. To be honest that didn't bother me as I was focused on myself at th time and I could just have easily have run into a pregnant woman in the supermarket/carpark etc.