Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Worst behaviour you’ve encountered in hospital ward

221 replies

Ithinkthatsenough · 13/04/2018 18:56

I am probably being U and touchy in posting this as ive just spent the day in hospital having a late d&c...
on ward with 2 other ladies who were chatty, was fine and bearable this morning, after 1/2 hohri knew all about their admissions and problems, children’s schooling, then had to put my headphones in when they started on bowel movements.
I was having an op, cleary due to care, questions asked, they could hear eveyrthinf tooand quite a distressing one

OP posts:
Habanero · 13/04/2018 18:57

Flowers I hope you feel better soon

Singlebutmarried · 13/04/2018 18:59

Came round post op to a woman claiming to be my mum rifling through my stuff.

She also tried to pee on the floor next to my bed.
She got booted out very quickly.

validusername1 · 13/04/2018 19:01

For me the worst has got to be when I was in hospital while pregnant with DD1, very poorly at around 32 weeks and the lady next to me was in the early stages of labour being kept on the ward. Her partner, however, was doing heroin in the toilet in the room.

So sorry for your experience 💐

Sierra259 · 13/04/2018 19:02

Woman in bed next to me on post-natal ward putting on her gospel radio loudly at 4.30am Angry. Almost worse was the fact was that it took 3 times of asking by me and one of the other women in the bay for one of the staff to actually come and get her to turn it off.

In a professional capacity I've seen almost everything, worse was probably someone closing the curtains to have a sneaky fag, with his oxygen mask on the bed 3 feet away. Twat.

Hope you recover quickly OP Flowers

nicknamehelp · 13/04/2018 19:05

After going to the toilet one night the lady in the bed next to me tried to get into bed with me - she also had v loud wind.

Docs told another lady she was just compared - she called someone crying she was dying of bowel cancer 🤔

Lady opposite me once spent till midnight on her phone talking loudly.

When in a side room person in ajoing room was watching a cat chase film with volume up full late.

I could go on I always seem to get stuck with nutty people!!

expatinscotland · 13/04/2018 19:06

Also had a man doing heroin in the patient toilet in a post natal unit.

EweDoEwe · 13/04/2018 19:08

Visiting DH's grandmother in hospital, 4 elderly women in the bay, one of whom was ringing her buzzer as she needed a commode.

After nearly 20 minutes and no response from staff she was nearly in tears. I walked out to find either a commode or someone to bring one, and found 4 nurses sat round the nurses station ignoring several buzzers whilst having a look at someones photos on Facebook, the screen in full view of anyone who walked past. Appalling behaviour.

FuzzyCustard · 13/04/2018 19:11

The doctor telling my very ill DH he needed to get out of bed. He had neutropenic sepsis following a stem cell transplant and couldn't remain upright. I told her that he was in bed because he felt like shit. I couldn't even think of a polite way to frame it. so just said that!

Seeinthedark · 13/04/2018 19:11

After my c section, there was a very loud woman in the bed next to me. The next day a lot of her family members were there (kids included), talking very loudly and stayed all day through the visiting hours. At one point one person knocked the crib I'd finally got ds to sleep in. Was glad to leave.

One of the nurses also seemed very annoyed that I was struggling with breast feeding. She was one of the reason I put him onto formula.

checkingforballoons · 13/04/2018 19:12

Shortly after having DS. Couple arrived on ward at about 10:30, asked nurse to watch their newborn so they could go for a fag. Got back, he left. She spent the rest of the night either on the phone, loudly asking about how she thought he was cheating on her or taking pictures of her baby, with the flash on. Which woke other babies up.
I eventually shuffled over to have a word and she looked utterly gormless and told me ‘I’VE just had a baby!’. As if the rest of us were there on fucking holiday...

Aloneandscared25 · 13/04/2018 19:12

I’m so sorry people can be so inconsiderate sorry for your lose.

Our worse experience of other people’s rudeness.

My daughter was 20 months she has complex health problems and she has unfortuntly come down really unwell and had quickly become septic we were waiting in the High depends unit on a ward of 4 beds ( they also do use HDU for non hdu cases to )
The boy next to us had his tonsil removed a few days before.
It was about 10 pm and they had decided that daughter would unfortuntly has to be intubated and sent to another hospital for ICU she was dieing.
They had the lights on to see her and the mum of the boy next door was complaining she then barged in to a curtains to complain right in front of me that they couldn’t sleep.
The nurse had lost it a bit at this point and said we are sorry but this child is v v v sick which the other mother replied with well so is mine and we need the lights off.
He was actually being discharged the next day.

Eledamorena · 13/04/2018 19:13

On an induction ward and we were allowed partners 12 hours a day.... the young girl in the next bed had the roughest partner who talked loudly the whole time, and they had the TV on full blast. At one point someone went to ask them to turn it down and they weren't even there, had gone for a walk and just left it blaring. They also ate CONSTANTLY, including bringing McDonalds into the ward and loads of snacks like doritos (we were given 3 meals which they ate as well)... between them they put away so much food - their choice, obviously - but the poor girl was sick on and off throughout the whole time she was there. The grossest part was when the partner emptied her sick bowl down the sink at the end of the ward, right by my bed. Rank. I had a word with the midwife eventually, suggesting someone might like to have a chat with her about keeping her strength up but not necessarily through binge eating! I didn't do anything about the noise level though. To be fair some of their conversations were highly entertaining after days of failing to induce!

UnicornRainbowFluffball · 13/04/2018 19:14

A woman setting off all the alarms on a childrens ward at 9pm by trying to take her child out the fire exit because the hospital didn't want to discharge him. That was after we listened to her tell the poor kid what an inconvenience he was for being ill because she had to be there with him instead of at home with her partner and other kids.

exWifebeginsat40 · 13/04/2018 19:15

i once lost my shit at three women opposite me who all put Emmerdale on their tellies at max volume, so they could talk loudly while watching it ‘together’. they had done this with four shows already today. and all day the day before, and the day before that. and in between soaps and Loose Women they shouted bits of stories from Take a Break at each other, and moaned about their husbands.

i was having a very horrible time, and Emmerdale broke me. i shouted at them, then ugly-cried inconsolably and a nurse had to come and tell them off and oh god it was awful.

the nurse took me off for a cup of tea and when i came back the ladies said sorry and i said sorry and then i cried again, and they were lovely. then we all watched Coronation Street together.

honestly though, in the moment, it was just unbearable and i was SO IMPOTENTLY ANGRY and i just...snapped.

Decemberqueen · 13/04/2018 19:16

Not so bad as the above but when I was in maternity ward after having DS. A woman was on her phone practically all night. Ok the babies were keeping us awake but every time I dropped off I would hear giggling and loud talk. Was too weak to complain the time.

Jayfee · 13/04/2018 19:16

I was pregnant and admitted due to bleeding. The doctor phoned his consultant on the ward phone and told him very loudly that I had had intercourse the previous evening. Not terrible but I did blush!

shakeyourcaboose · 13/04/2018 19:16

ewefoewe was Facebook on their phone/own laptop? As most trusts I've been in NHS Scotland, Facebook is blocked.

EnglishRose13 · 13/04/2018 19:17

When my friend was admitted for day surgery, there was a young guy also waiting, being escorted by two prison officers.

He'd apparently bitten off his own finger to get a day out of prison.

Hellohellohowareyou · 13/04/2018 19:20

Nothing as bad as these but a lady opposite me would have a visit from docs/nurse then call her friends/family/neighbour/Doris from the post office and relay what they said. Except she would lie or massively twist the truth.

She had a scan on her ovaries which came back fine but she told them all on the phone she needed them removing etc

I heard the story on repeat for every phone call

Oddish · 13/04/2018 19:20

Not bad behaviour as such but on my mixed ward in Bham City hospital we had a male prisoner, cuffed to the bed and police guard and everything, that was... interesting.

Jayfee · 13/04/2018 19:22

Now I have read some of the other posts I wish to withdraw mine as being too trivial. Some people experience shocking behaviour.

SheNumpty · 13/04/2018 19:23

I was on the maternity ward after having DD during visiting time and the woman next to me had about three adults visiting, and a toddler that nobody was watching. He kept ducking under the separating curtain so he was in with me and my visitors, messing with the curtain and pushing through knocking into where DD would have been sleeping had she been asleep.

I was getting so pissed off at them not controlling him, and I'd told him to go away a few times already, so I was just getting ready to push the crib into him after he appeared for the tenth time (bad i know, but y'know hormones) when he tripped and fell into it. He wasn't particularly hurt, but was sheepish enough to disappear behind the curtain and not return. Not his fault really, knobhead adults not looking after him.

CleverQuacks · 13/04/2018 19:23

After having my 3rd son I was on a bay of 4 ladies. The lady opposite had a partner who spoke really loudly all the time. At about 11.30pm the midwives finally asked him to leave. So he went. However the ward was on the second floor of the hospital and he came outside and began shouting up to his wife and she started shouting out the window down to him. It was so loud and woke us all. We told the midwives but they did nothing.

RepealRepealRepeal · 13/04/2018 19:26

Post surgery, after being moved from ICU to main ward, the woman across from me refused to go to the toilet. She would only use a commode. Which would have been fine except she would terrorise the trainee or bank nurses into having everybody leave the ward when she wanted to go. Eventually the ward sister puts a stop to that but she still insists on all visitors leaving the ward. One of the other patients, in her 70s, ran to the window every time her DH was in the car park, which I thought was just the cutest thing ever, anyway, she said to the sister that there's only an hour and a half for visiting anyway, and half of it is wasted as he husband has to loiter around the halls while patient 1 is using the commode. Patient 2 had just been told that her cancer had spread and that she was going to need more surgery and all she wanted was her husband beside her, so they were either going to have to do something about patient 1, extend visiting hours, or let her and her husband use the office or staff room for visiting. They moved patient 1 the next morning.

SheNumpty · 13/04/2018 19:30

@jayfee I feel like that about mine now. I spent five weeks in hospital for different surgeries at the end of last year and I thought the experience was overall excellent. Reading all these makes me realise just how excellent.