to wish I had complained about this nurse

[happy83]

My dd was readmitted to hospital on day 5 due to losing a high percentage of body weight. I was breastfeeding.
The staff on the children's ward were lovely but the 1st nurse dealing with me and my dd on the neonatal unit was abrasive.
I was of course feeling really bad about the situation and needed support. (dh had taken older dc home) I was just about holding it together.
However, nurse was clearly annoyed that she had to deal with a new admission as it was the weekend and kept moaning about all the work involved. (ward clerk would do much of paperwork during week)
She kept on saying things like "they say breatfeeding is best but than ...."
"all these poor little babies. they didn't ask to be born early and than you have this big baby ..."
I also asked several times for a breast pump but one was not forthcoming.
At the time I really had mixed feelings about complaining as I was wary of getting the nurse into trouble. However, I am now kicking myself as by not complaining another person could have had to deal with this.
This is a breastfeeding friendly hospital btw.

Cant you still complain? How long ago was it?

complain anyway, no matter how long. tell them you've only just had the emotional strength to revisit it. and get some counselling.

Contact PALS at the hospital concerned, ask switchboard to put you through. They'll help you with the complaints procedure.

She deserved to get into trouble. Complain!

Complain. Useless, dangerous waste of space.

Complain now, in writing. You don't deserve to be made to feel like a nuisance, and it sounds like she is a long way from being breastfeeding friendly....

I am a nurse and I think the very least, and I mean the very least, you can expect from us is that we are nice to you and show you some compassion when you are frightened and your baby is ill. When you complain you allow the nurse who didn't look after you very well the opportunity to reflect on her practice and hopefully do it better next time and you support the nurses who do care by improving the standard of their colleague's work, its a win win. Unless she has a long list of complaints against her all that will happen to your nurse is a bit of retraining that it sounds like she could do with.

what itchy said. contact pals. you can start with an informal complaint and explain how the nurses attitude upset you. she will be informed about the complaint and hopefully might think twice in future about how her words can upset already worried parents.

Thank you. It was about 5 months ago. It is such a shame as all the other nurses were fantastic and dd is thriving and breastfeeding is going well. Would have really liked to have felt able to show my appreciation to the hospital staff but this nurse prevented me from doing that. Especially the young nurse who walked past the room we were in and saw i was upset. She took me out to relatives room, made me a drink, arranged for me to have meals on postnatal ward and was jus fab!

Well complain about the other nurse and send b9g bunch of flowers for all the rest

And if you remember the young nurses name said an accolade to the ward saying how good she was and why. I'm a nurse and accolades are always nice to receive.