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Original poster

to be shocked by what my mil went through 60 years ago.

169 replies

NorthernLurker · 27/10/2013 13:58

Talking over lunch I have learnt that my mil was admitted to hospital with pneumonia aged 12 months. She then developed double pneumonia followed by measles, chicken pox and scarlet fever. She was in for a total of 6 months and was only discharged then because her parents couldn't stand anymore and removed her with the support of their GP.
In the whole of that time they never held her or spoke to her. They saw her about three times through a window. To find out how she was they had to travel in to the city and ask at a booth. For 6 weeks all they were told was that she was critical. It was a considerable advance when the hospital started posting status updates in the local paper and you could read about how ill your child was.

I knew this kind of thing happened but to hear it 'in the flesh' is just so shocking. Mil's parents clearly did an excellent job making up for this deprivation as she achieved well at school, became a nurse and an excellent parent and grandparent herself. She is one of the most empathetic people I know.

Thinking about what that litttle baby must have suffered though - just about blubbed all over the dinner table!

OP posts:
TootFuckingToot · 27/10/2013 18:39

These are so sad Sad

Shosha1 · 27/10/2013 18:41

DS2 had Spina Bifida and my Ex and his Mother told me not to bring him home.

I left the hospital and went to my Parents where DS1 was.

I never went home.

thebody · 27/10/2013 18:47

expat and Shosha, just hugs from us all I am sure xx

Spikeytree · 27/10/2013 18:49

My mum was born with dislocated hips, but it wasn't noticed until she was three. So in 1949 she was packed off from Lancashire to Biddulph Hospital (North Staffordshire Cripples' Hospital) in Stoke. She was kept in for 18 months and my Nan and Granddad could visit fortnightly, on a Sunday, for one hour. They had to borrow a car to drive down. Anything they took for her had to be handed over to a nurse who would decide if she could have it. It was suggested, after 18 months, that they give her up as the manipulations and operations were not working and the hips kept dislocating. Thankfully they refused and had to fight to get her discharged and bring her home.

Mum and my nan always told the story dispassionately, but one day last year we were watching a TV programme and they showed the gardens of the hospital (it has been turned into flats now). My mum was weeping and she told me she had felt she was being tortured whilst she was there and that she had been naughty and that's why she was taken away from her parents.

GoldenGytha · 27/10/2013 18:59

My experience is somewhat different to all these awful tales, which are so sad Sad

I had my tonsils out 39 years ago, when I was 7, I had my precious favourite cuddly toy with me, Orangey, the doctors asked me if Orangey had a sore throat too, and said they would take his tonsils out too. When I came round from the anaesthetic, he had a big bandage wrapped round his neck.

The nurses were lovely too, I often cried and they used to come and sit with me and give me a cuddle.

thebody · 27/10/2013 18:59

Jesus Christ, these stories of childhood trauma basically being brushed aside as 'life' is so bloody shocking.

also the prevailing attitudes that children actually couldn't feel or be sad or suffer!!!

so much for the 'good old days'

steppemum · 27/10/2013 19:08

My granny had triplets who all died. They were alive when born and they died over the next 10 days. She never saw them. The doctor told the nurse to take them away and advised my Granny not to see them as they weren't going to survive anyway. Sad

It isn't so long ago either, my cousin broke his leg when he was 2 and and had to be in traction. My aunt was told she couldn't stay, could only do visiting hours. She kicked up a huge fuss and refused to leave. The matron couldn't actually physically remove her, so she stayed.
That was in about 1978

SHRIIIEEEKFuckingBearBlood · 27/10/2013 19:11

That has made me sob. So much is known about attachment now, and the importance of being held and spoken to by the people who love you. Obviously that is an extreme example of the opposite!
Glad her parents were able to make up for it with loads of love afterwards.

SHRIIIEEEKFuckingBearBlood · 27/10/2013 19:12

I had meningities about 15 years ago. My mum never left my side (I don't think). I was 18 YEARS old.

SHRIIIEEEKFuckingBearBlood · 27/10/2013 19:12

Sorry that all sounds good for her. Point is she was able to - it was expected!

steppemum · 27/10/2013 19:25

My mum taught nursery nurses, and she used to use a film made in the 60's. It was a fly on the wall type film following a child. The family was normal family, with toddler, the mum was pregnant. In those days the mum stayed in hospital for 10 days when baby was born, and the toddler went to a residential nursery for the 10 days.

The film followed the toddler. The nursery had loads of staff all changing including night staff. The toddler (who I think was called Oliver) was taken there having never met any of them. the film basically followed him getting more and more traumatised as he was disconnected from everything and everyone he knew and couldn't reconnect with anyone as the faces kept changing. He cried a lot and refused food and wouldn't sleep.
In the end he was reaching out to the film crew as the only consistent and familiar faces in the room. Making the film caused the filmaker huge distress, but he said he had to be hard hearted and finish the film (and not interact with Oliver) in order to make the system see what it was doing and change it.

In the weeks after Oliver went home with mum and new baby, his behaviour got worse and worse, and he was labelled a naughty child.

That film was massive in changing how nurseries we used and run. It lead to the whole idea of key workers and the closure of residential baby nurseries

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 19:40

Someone was with DD1 every single night. Every one. There was NO WAY we were leaving her. She was petrified the first night in there, she had never been in hospital before. She was 8.

Original poster
NorthernLurker · 27/10/2013 19:42

It really does make you appreciate what we totally take for granted now.

Rosduk - sorry for your loss Sad

OP posts:
thebody · 27/10/2013 19:42

stepp, thank goodness for people like your mum training the next generation.

thebody · 27/10/2013 19:43

expat, quite right.

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 19:46

I mean, get real! They can't tell the future or you'd do see one and head off whatever preventable disease or accident was meant to take your loved ones out, win the lottery, find out which shares or stocks or investments to buy or make and when to sell. Yeah, right.

It is conning vulnerable and, all too often, bereaved people.

It's like all those 'near death' experiences. Dead is dead. People don't come back just because they are speshul. Everyone is special to someone.

Original poster
NorthernLurker · 27/10/2013 19:48

Did you mean that to be on another thread expat? If you'e talking about psychics I totally agree

OP posts:
CreatureRetorts · 27/10/2013 19:48

These horrible medical staff - were they ever held to account for the horrid way in whch they treated children?!!

I have to stop reading - getting upset and Angry

foreverondiet · 27/10/2013 19:50

My sister had an operation when she was 5, over 30 years ago.

My mum sat by her bedside all day but had to leave at 8pm and couldn't come back until 7am but my mum was shocked that several other parents seemed to drop their v young child off for operations and then pick them up several days later, even though parents were allowed to be there all day.

My son had nightmares for months after an operation when he was 4, because neither me or DH were there when he woke up (we weren't allowed in the recovery room after the GA).

LiegeAndLief · 27/10/2013 19:53

My mum was in hospital with appendicitis aged 2, in the 50s, for two weeks. Her parents were allowed to visit for two hours a day. My granddad went every day but my grandma didn't go at all because she was worried it would upset her! As in my grandma, not my mum! I just can't imagine leaving my dc, ill and confused and alone, but I suppose the parents didn't have much of a choice.

I hope that in 10 or 20 years time people will look back at how SCBUs are run now with the same feelings of horror. My ds was in NICU and SCBU for 7 weeks but I was discharged after 6 days. Fortunately I was able to get to the hospital and was there 12 hours a day, partly because that was the only way I could get lifts but also trying to establish breast feeding. The staff often told me I was there too much and should go home. There was no way I could have stayed overnight. I always had to ask to hold my baby or even change his nappy. When he was a bit better and in a cot, so more accessible, I used to pick him up for a cuddle and was told I was spoiling him and to put him down again. Yet if your baby was discharged and then had to go back in again you would be in the children's hospital, which had beds by all the cots for parents to stay and you would be in charge of all their cares. I really wish they could have managed something a bit more like that in SCBU.

MrsAMerrick · 27/10/2013 19:56

When I was 4 (early 70s) I had my tonsils out in hospital, which was a 4 day stay. I made friends with the little boy in the next bed, and I remember it a a great time, didn't have any trauma from it (I was obviously a hard-hearted little girl!). Our parents were allowed to visit for an hour each evening and a little girl on the ward cried every time her parents left. I was very scathing about that!

My DH's sister became ill at the age of 11 and was admitted to hospital. My PiL were allowed to visit her for an hour each evening, and despite the fact that she was clearly deteriorating, weren't allowed to stay into the evening. She died during one night, alone. My DH still cries when he thins about it.

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 20:03

Sorry, yes, was for the psychic thread :o.

TerrorTremor · 27/10/2013 20:13

It is shocking what can happen.

My partner's parents didn't see him that much the first 3 months of his life as he was in a ventilator as he was born at 24 weeks.

Even as a child, he only saw them one day a week as he boarded in at school 4 days and the other 2 stayed with his Granny and Grandpa.

My ex partner it was even worse. At aged 2 he developed meningitis. They thought he wasn't going to live and had treatment for a few weeks. They got rid of photos of him and didn't take any new ones as they were sure he was going to die. I think it's truly horrific.

It adds to how messed up the bloke is, though.

I really feel for MIL having to go through that.

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 20:19

Oh, MrsMerrick, I am so sorry for that! Tears are in my eyes for that.
I lost my own child in hospital.

'These horrible medical staff - were they ever held to account for the horrid way in whch they treated children?!!'

No. They are still not. I spit and curse on everyone of them. I wish them a horrible death, I truly do.

Chottie · 27/10/2013 20:20

One of my school friends had surgery for mastoids when she was about 4 (now 58 years old). Her parents were not allowed to see her while she was in hospital. It was the norm in those days.