To ask for your most awful hospital ward companion stories?

[stripeyronnie]

Currently on a postnatal ward. Only been here an hour. So far someone has eaten reheated curry which I can still smell. Next doors toddler is watching peppa feckin pig on loudspeaker and a different toddler is opening my curtain whilst playing with a fire engine with siren on. Luckily baby is used to being at home with similarly annoying siblings (we've been readmitted) so is sleeping through it all. DH has been dispatched home for earplugs and other things to keep me sane.

Vaping is banned because it can react with the oxygen and cause fires like a bomb going off. There’s like a flint or something in the vape. Well done you idiot for ignoring the sensible rules for keeping people safe.

I was in hospital with pneumonia. Woman opposite me kept asking the nurses for oxygen even though she didn't need any. She kept telling me off for "hogging all the oxygen", saying she needed it too.

I think there's a special place in Heaven for women who've had to endure pre / post natal wards. You're in a vulnerable position with other women's partners and toddlers. My "favourite" was the pre-natal ward with older DC. The 19 year old having her 2nd babt was arguing on the phone with her now-ex, who she had just split from over the phone, as he wanted to come int othe hospital as it was his baby too, and she didn't want him anywhere near her. Another mum had been left in sole charge of 2 toddlers whilst dad went off somewhere. Her first language wasn't English so staff were struggling to explain that she was a patient so couldn't look after these children and where was their father / the man who brought them in? Chaos. I spent 10 days willing myself to go home. Really wanted to self-discharge but DH kept talking me down as we needed to be in for monitoring. He brought ear plugs and a telly card to keep me sane.

LaMarschallin

Night shift

The poor woman in the bed next to me had either had a mmc (which is what I was in for) or a miscarriage and was crying.

The nurse was trying to be sympathetic but actually said "oh you poor thing and you can't actually have children, can you"

To this day, I feel like I should of said something about how insensitive that comment was.

It’s mind boggling sometimes ThePhoenixRises, I was being wheeled back out after an ERPC under a local for a MMC - wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy - and the nurse asked me if I had other children, I said no, and she said “awww, what are you doing for Christmas then?” I pulled the sheet over my face and bawled.

Sorry for your loss

My DD was born very premature and transferred to NICU in another hospital. When she was able to go back to our local hospital, she was the smallest of all of the babies in SCBU. I briefly spoke to the dad of the twins in the incubator opposite who was clearly shocked at how small my DD was and was gawping at her in her incubator. The next day, DD was diagnosed with sepsis and I was behind the screen next to her incubator crying and expressing milk. I heard one of the visitors talking to the Dad opposite say "which one's the really small one?" and not realising that I was there, they both approached the incubator staring at DD as if she were an exhibition piece. I know they probably meant no harm, but it was just so insensitive and really not what I needed at that time.

Local hospital postnatal ward for DS - nightmare extended family next bed to mine. Little did I know that was just an inconvenience.
Same ward for DD - very severe infection.
Same hospital for DH's broken ankle - MRSA with six months' intravenous treatment and two subsequent ops to rid his metal plate of it.
Free at the point of use.

I have been in and out of hospital far too many times. Basics I pack include earplugs, flipflops or similar for the shower, eye mask and headphones.

I have had some excellent times which have outweighed the dire.

I have been 'that' patient when I kept the other 3 ladies awake all night when I started vomiting, despite given various anti-nausea injections. I was dreading opening the curtains but two of the ladies were wonderful and told me off for apologising.
The 3rd was a nasty bitch. She had a go at everybody, even people just walking past our bay. When I was rushed back into surgery, told me as leaving, ffs stop being such a fucking drama llama. When I came back - ffs thought you would be gone. Was going to ask to change to that cubicle (window bed).

A lady was in and screaming all day and night that she was in labour. Her husband was a know it all and her advocate. Staff wanted to give her a laxative, he was against it and argued daily with staff that she wasn't constipated. Give her morphine and her other pain relief.
Four days later she was still screaming she was in labour when staff gave her a laxative.
Omfg the smell and a very quiet lady who then refused all pain meds as not needed. Hubby told the staff that the laxative was a fluke. Tomorrow she would be screaming in pain.
He was constantly telling them all how to do their job.

Had the snorers.

The guy who leered at me the whole time I was breastfeeding. The curtains weren't allowed to be pulled around.

Couple in next bed who had sex.

Guests still there well after visiting. One woman had 7 guests making loads of noise. Night staff busy and understaffed. I got fed up, stood up, told the guests, that I like them don't give a fuck about others. So I'm turning the lights off and going to sleep. (I had gone 4 days without sleep)
One did complain about sitting in the dark. Told them, they wouldn't be in the dark if they had left 3 hours ago.
Every time she had visitors after that she would tell them to be quiet, that's the crazy one (looking at me).

The idiot at 5 am playing the radio. Reminded her she was in a shared room and some of us would like to actually sleep. (Apparently, she'd done it every morning for a week).

I spent some time in a ward where the elderly lady opposite complained to the nurse, that I kept using the toilet. I mean I was ill. It wasn't a competition!

I luckily only spent about 4 hours on the post labour ward but in that short time I had a man in the next cubicle chanting the whole time and his partner telling him to stfu as it was not settling the new baby, one couple argued about who's mum would come and watch the baby as they were due in court that day for battering a policeman. They then proceeded to drink about a litre of Malibu bought in for them and the girl the other side of me discussed in great detail in no less than 7 separate phone calls the state of her ruined vagina, even the poor nurse got a detailed description before telling the girl that she was very sorry but she was only there to do her blood pressure. I could not get out of there fast enough. People seem oblivious to the fact that curtained cubicles are not soundproof.

Very sad but years ago I was on a mixed obs ward in A and E.

There was a man in the bed next to me who kept singing the same mournful song over and over a d intermittently ripping his drip out and screaming for the nurses to come and finish him off :(

I was very glad when he got moved to a side ward. I did feel sorry for him but given I'd been admitted with a dreadful headache I was glad to see him go :(

Postnatal ward understaffed so had to ask numerous times for my bedsheets to be changed as they were covered in blood. In the end things got so bad my husband just went poking in cupboards to find new sheets and changed them for me.
Again asked numerous times that my catheter needed emptied. Finally when a midwife came in she sat on it!
Just the no dignity. Curtains opened whilst in the midst of an internal examination again numerous times and during visiting hours.
And the food. I'd given birth at 4pm the day before and hadn't eaten since or for 2 days prior (long labour). At breakfast I asked for toast and cereal and was shouted at that I could only have one. Then she put tea on toast on a table the other side of my bay. I wasn't able to walk at that stage so that's where they remained as my husband had gone home for a shower. When she came back to collect the plates she shouted at me for wasting food.
Now expecting DC2. Nothing will help me push harder than to ensure my hospital stay is as short as possible

It makes the time I spent a night next to a happy clappy christian singing hymns not too bad compared to some of these.

The worst thing hospitals ever did is to make visiting hours flexible. I felt so ill I didn't even want to engage with my own visitors let alone the extended families of other patients. Two to a bed? Let's make that 7+, no children under 5? Let's bring in toddlers who race around screaming for what seemed like hours on end. Just for good measure let's add a patient with dementia who shouts all nigh t and a poor girl with gangrenous feet to stink the place out to such a extent that none of us could face our food. Not their fault, obviously. Quite honestly it seemed like hell and that was only one hospital stay out of double figures!

On the postnatal ward, through the curtain we heard our neighbour being visited by her husband and what sounded like a sweet little boy of maybe 4 or 5. Father took this opportunity to tell the little boy, very solemnly and at great length that he was now responsible for looking after Mummy and would need to do everything himself because Mummy was busy with his new sister, and God needed him to step up and take responsibility because God did not like lazy boys...and he’d better get top marks at school and not disappoint God ...on and on and on for about 20 minutes with the sinister evangelising. Mum didn’t say a word. I wanted to reach through the curtain and give the poor lamb a cuddle.

An extent...autocorrect is useless!

My poor DM spent the a month of her life in hospital until we managed to get her into a hospice for the final week (wasn't easy). She lay in an unbearably hot ward, not allowed a fan for infection control reasons. The patient opposite her was in the throes of dementia and kept threatening to beat my mum because she believed mum was having an affair with her husband. She actually hit nurses twice so in the end I had to really argue for a side room (bear in mind that my mum was dying, her lungs full of fluid).

This experience led me to decide that I won't be waiting until I'm unable to control my own situation to die. I'll be taking my own life before that. Sorry to bring the tone of the thread down but in my experience hospitals are appalling places.

The worst thing hospitals ever did is to make visiting hours flexible.

And treating post-surgical patients as if they are in there as visitors or carers because they've had a baby, expecting them to fetch their own food, denying them pain relief, to share a bathroom with men, etc. Post natal women are treated in a way men would never tolerate.

I agree Gorky! 'The Peaceful Pill Handbook' and Exit International all the way.

Children’s ward. 3 nights with young DS. Teenager in next bed constantly swearing and complaining loudly how she doesn’t want to F*ing be here! Right through the night.

A few people have mentioned about hospital curtains not being sound proof 🤣🤣

They definitely are not!! When my daughter was born she was poorly so spent a few days in SCBU.

So on the postnatal ward (4beds) I obviously was there without my baby. And all the other 3 mums (and their visitors/partners) would peep in and drown go back to their beds and go 'OMG she hasn't got her baby, what do you think happened?'

'Where's that woman's baby'

Bloody hell even one thought she had died FFS.

No respect or kindness.

Thankfully my baby was ok but can you imagine if someone had that and the baby wasn't ok.

How insensitive