Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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:

chocoholic05 · 27/10/2013 20:22

This is so different from my experience. I'm 40 and when I was in great ormond street in 1977 my mum never left my side. She stayed the whole time

thegreylady · 27/10/2013 20:25

My dh had scarlet fever followed by a secondary infection and was only allowed to see his parents by looking out of a first floor window.He was 4.He was in there for 6 weeks in 1940!

thegreylady · 27/10/2013 20:26

When my ds was in hospital for his hernia op in 1972 I was allowed to stay the whole time.He was 2.

Levantine · 27/10/2013 20:27

These stories are so sad. My dad was admitted to hospital aged 3 in the 1940s for six weeks or so and only visited once a week. He has had quite a sad life on many levels and I have often wondered what his experience contributed to that.

1944girl · 27/10/2013 20:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Sindarella · 27/10/2013 20:33

My ds was born very ill, he spent 9 weeks in ICU. I was told i had to leave him at 8pm as the unit was too crowded for me to stay, for the first few weeks I didnt even know if he would make it through the night. I used to catch 3 buses home crying with hurting boobs an a bag of washing.
I used to phone every few hours through the night, one nurse told me he wouldnt stop screaming ??
At 4 weeks he was moved to another hospital where they let me stay with him. This was 2007.

out2lunch · 27/10/2013 20:36

me too sindarella - I had to ring hospital each morning with bated breath.

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 20:39

'At 4 weeks he was moved to another hospital where they let me stay with him. This was 2007.'

This is now, Sinderella .

We were only 'allowed' to stay with DD1 because she was in an isolation room in ICU. Everyone else had to leave them.

queenofthepirates · 27/10/2013 20:41

On the plus side....

When my grandma had my mum she told me about how she went into a cottage hospital for two weeks on the new NHS. After the birth it was complete bed rest for her to bond with the baby. As the end of her stay approached, she was despatched for an evening out with my grandpa whilst the nurses babysat mum.

That beats my 24 hours in Harlow hospital after a c-section before being nudged out with a new baby and not a clue what to do!

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 20:42

During 'procedures' they kicked everyone out. One stupid bitch tried to kick us out, though we were in a private room. I can't say what I wish her, either.

OnaPromise · 27/10/2013 20:46

that folk have had this experience recently.

My dad was in hospital for several months as a toddler and came home calling his mum 'nurse'. My dad has always had some difficulties socially and with language, and I wonder if this is at the root of these.

ModreB · 27/10/2013 20:50

I remember being in Hospital after having my tonsils out, it was the early 70's. I was 7yo. I was sat in the bed, crying for my DM. I could see her through the glass window.

She was sat outside the ward, listening to me crying, but she wasn't allowed to go in for 45 minutes as it wasn't visiting time. My DM was a single parent, and it wasn't the done thing at the time, so she was always suspect.

DM insisted that I was discharged the same day. And then had the fight with SS over removing me from medical care without authorisation. I remember my DGM saw off the SW on that one.

Overthehillmum · 27/10/2013 20:52

I am 45, when I was five I went in for my tonsils operation, I was in a mixed ward and one of the men kept coming down with sweets and stroking my hair, my parents only came once as I had lots of brothers and sisters at home that needed them, a nurse gave the man a row and they moved me nearer to her desk, the matron shouted at me for wrinkling my covers, I didn't have a clue what was going on, thank god it's totally different now.

Corygal · 27/10/2013 20:54

Reading these makes me realise how much I LOVED having my tonsils out 40 years ago. Nice food, lots of attention, bright quiet room in an orderly hospital - the whole thing was a great holiday.

bigwellyfucker · 27/10/2013 20:58

Sindarella my dd1 was in NICU in 2010 and I had to leave her every night and during ward rounds every day. She came home at two weeks old. I managed to stay in for a week and would go up every two hours throughout the night (yes she was that sick) and then the second week I used to have to leave at 10pm, I'd ring at 3am and at 7am and be back by her side at 8am.

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 21:02

I buzzed in anytime. They did not mess with me, or DD1's very scary professor consultant.

Original poster

NorthernLurker · 27/10/2013 21:03

I didn't realise you wouldn't have routinely been allowed to stay expat. That's so wrong.
The SCBU situation is more well known of course - and yet there's no reason why parents couldn't stay in if the units were differently designed. There needs to be motivation for change I guess - and most parents undergoing this are too stunnedm exhausted and if the worst happens grieving to demand that.

OP posts:

TootFuckingToot · 27/10/2013 21:07

When Ds was 3 weeks old (2008) he was admitted to hospital with Bronchial Pneumonia, He was in a side room in a cot & they would not let me stay with him as 'He wouldn't of noticed anyway' The fuckers , He has had at least another 20 stays in the place and only a handful of times have they allowed me to stay

Ds still asks me why I left him in hospital

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 21:12

Nope, you are not, Northern, not even in a side/isolation room. You have to sit in a chair. We were battle hard by the time we came in.

The night she went under vent, it was customary to kick the parents out. A patient can die during that.

Instead, the cons who was on, I would have his babies if he wanted, I'm that grateful! took me aside into the vestibule and told me her cons had vouched for my calm and reserve, but warned she may die during the process. Well, we had had over 7 months of that.

He took me back in and said to the staff, 'They stay.'

No more was said.

We were able to hold our girl's hand and speak to her, for what was the last time we ever saw her awake and alive.

I made sure to tell him, this was a debt that could never be repayed.

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 21:16

Bet you got treated like a pain in the arse, too, bigwelly. Well, fuck 'em. I didn't care a jot what they thought of me. It was all about DD1 nd doing our best for her, the patient. As long as it didn't interfere with their jobs, which it did not, they could go to fuck for all I cared. With her scary cons to back that up, thankfully, well, we were there for our child in her last days.

1944girl · 27/10/2013 21:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

longjane · 27/10/2013 21:26

there was kids tv show called childrens hospital in the late 80s early 90s
No parents stay .

My sister had teeth out in hospital miles away from us and we did have a car in middle 70s.
I remember her saying there was crying baby on her ward and another child tried to comfit it. My sister was well pissed as she though the nurse should do it . My sister has never wanted kids and has low low view of nurses.

BonTemps · 27/10/2013 21:33

My Mother had a still birth at 8 and a half months, she wasn't allowed to hold him, he wasn't cremated, he was placed into a coffin of someone who was being buried locally, it was a common thing to do apparently, she doesn't know where, she was also told not to mope and to get on with it.

expatinscotland · 27/10/2013 21:34

I cringe to imagine how my daughter may have been treated if I were not there.

The first night in ICU, the nurse was more interested in whatever she was studying than my child, who was far more demanding than a baby who couldn't speak.

bigwellyfucker · 27/10/2013 21:34

expat I wasn't a PITA then but three years of the NHS has taught me well.

I have a certain reputation now. Hard won. But if I don't speak up for my child who will?

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7