To expect the hospital to be more considerate of pregnant mums?

[buttercuplizzy]

My 3 year old son broke his leg 2 weeks ago and has been in hospital since. He is expected to be in hospital another week.

I cannot fault the care my Son has received, it has been exceptional. But I am 30 weeks pregnant and I'm at breaking point. I suffered badly from Hypermesis, which has been under control for several months now. But the lack of sleep, proper food, stress etc is having such a toll on my body. My nausea and sickness has come back and I just feel broken and at the point I am worrying about the health of myself and baby....

Am I sounding melodramatic? We have a daughter at home to care for and not a massive amount of family support. I am struggling with the lack of sleep, caused by being on a busy ward with lots of middle of the night admittance. Im struggling with the physical care my son needs. Im struggling with the poor diet.

I understand my son, and not me, is the patient. But surely they have a duty of care towards pregnant women? Im exhausted, how can I respectfully raise this with staff? I just feel like I need more help and a quieter environment- not sure if either are possible. Or any other solutions- me and my husband are currently doing alternating 24 hour shifts.

@knitnerd90 I mean of course if the parent was the patient in the hospital....which the OP isn't.

In most other developed countries OPs son would be in a side room to facilitate her staying or staffing levels would be sufficient to allow her to not be there 24/7.

In addition to the country I worked in, and short stints in a few other countries in addition to a long one I did in the UK, I question that. If OP is struggling and has special requirements, then the fix is that her DH or the child’s father if separated stays instead. Side rooms are generally limited in the UK, as they are in our system, and reserved for patients for whom a general ward is inappropriate (not because parent can’t sleep or whatnot), but infection related generally.

Also sometimes if you are lucky you do get given food as there was often meals left over (ie a child had been discharged after meal orders had gone through) and there was always more of the lunch bags made than needed. I liked my NHS lunch bag with the cheese sandwich, packet of biscuits, crisps, mini cake, apple and the really nice yogurt.

Childrens Ward sister here.
"If there's a cardiac arrest on the ward a special team will deal with it, it doesn't use every member of ward staff"

Actual cardiac arrests are thankfully rare on most children's ward BUT other emergency situations do occur and they often initially do take all members of staff especially at night, the ward staff are the "special team" we are the ones with all the necessary training. Anyway during an emergency we still have other sick children to look after many of whom will have medical conditions that mean they require close observation so any spare staff will be busy with them. On my ward side rooms go to unvaccinated babies, oncology patients, other immunocompromised pts etc first. We offer breakfast to all parents but no other meals, have a parents room with a microwave fridge etc. and there is a canteen the food is not top restaurant standard but its not totally inedible inedible there is also a Costa on site. Non tertiary hospitals are unlikely to have separate accommodation (like Ronald MacDonald houses) for parents.

I would not report a mum to SS for going home (they wont be interested) but a 3 yr old may become unsettled at night on a busy ward without a parent and I know often how noisy wards are, but would he settle for a member of staff if you weren't there and he woke up and became upset? Is he sleeping through the noise (most children do). Does he still wear a nappy at night? If yes you could try settling him for the night once he's fast asleep go home (assuming its not to far away) and come back early in the morning, again assuming everything is stable I would be happy for him not to have any observations (by this I mean temp, O2 stats etc) done overnight etc as this might wake him, obviously you need your phone on in case he wakes and becomes inconsolable would that work for you? In the day time we have play leaders and volunteers who can amuse a child and many parents will use this time to go off the ward/go home for a short time/have shower etc. We try and care for the whole family and support parents as much as we can but we are now so busy all the time. My advise have a chat to the nurse allocated to you say you're struggling and in particular ask for help with the physical care if it's not being offered (it should be). Good luck.

Thank you so much for all you do @tiredwardsister

I'm in Australia and the FREE care my children have received in public hospitals has included private rooms, somewhere for me to sleep, and once admitted to the ward, food and drink for me as well as the child.

Very important to note this is not everywhere. It depends on State, age/design of hospital and also different health areas within the State. One of my kids was in hospital a lot from birth right through to transition to adult services recently. They used the second largest paed hospital in Australia and it is nothing as you describe. They started off in acute NICU, then long term NICU care for several months. Irrespective of women pumping/breastfeeding there was certainly no food given!

Then in kids wards there were (and still are) zero private rooms apart from a few for infection control/immune compromised. Didn’t make any difference if you were enacting your private healthcare even, the few rooms available need to be used for special populations. There was also no food for parents/carers! You were expected to have that sorted and there are several cut-price food/meal options in the hospital if needed (hospital grade food but cheap). There is a parents room on every ward with kettle/tea/coffee/milk, third rate packaged biscuits. The shower/toilet in the ward room has a big sign on it saying no parents to use facilities, only to help children shower/toilet and to use parents room. You are meant to queue for the single toilet/shower off the parents room. Very few do. Most people remain unwashed or argue they had to get wet themselves while assisting their child to shower😁. I can tell you, if the staff heard a toilet flush during the night they would be in quick smart to check it wasn’t a lone parent using the ward room bathroom. Hilarious as they would take forever to come if someone pressed a buzzer though.

The only time my child ever had a single room was when they were in non-critical ICU area. For both critical and non-critical ICU you don’t get fed either. A trolley comes around twice a day with sandwiches, crisps, chocolate bars, bottled water and cans of soft drink and you pay for what you want in cash if you don’t want to leave your critically I’ll child and head down to get some food from the cafeteria. So, they do enable you to stay with critically ill kids but you don’t eat breakfast and have a purchased sandwich for brunch and another for dinner with crisps as a snack. They have parents room with tea/coffee.

That’s today in Australia. We have very different experiences across our States, health districts and individual hospitals due to their age/design and the way they are used to running.

I was a healthcare professional for decades in the system and don’t see any horror in the experience I’ve described. I would mainly stay so that I could keep an eye on things clinically but I’d do weekdays 24/7 and then DH would do weekends 24/7 while I spent time with other kids at home. In the situation OP describes she needs to swap, and her DH stay in hospital entirely or she does the weekends only (and takes suitable food - parents rooms will have a fridge and microwave), or she just stays for a few hours a day and he uses that time to get some food for himself etc. With two parents it’s easily managed with a little organisation.

I don't have much to add to what PPs have said but I'd just like to extend my sympathies. I know your pain.
My 2 year old DS was landed in ICU earlier this year due to a complete failure by our GP to carry out tests we had asked for. I was ill with hyperemesis so DH had to take him to A&E alone. It was horrendous not being able to be there for my baby.
I ended up in another hospital myself that week and DH was with DS the whole time, with a few hours here and there respite when my parents went to take over. In normal times we would have shared but pregnant me simply couldn't. I think your DH might need to take up more of the burden as the last thing your family needs is you going off a cliff again.
Things will get better soon 💐

What is your problem? Did you really think you were helping anyone with that awful reply to OP who is struggling with her child in hospital, or did it just make you feel good to kick someone when they were down?

Hope you feel better OP. I would definitely tell DH he has to do more shifts because you're not managing.

@CallItLoneliness- no food or private rooms in my local 2 hospitals in Melbourne. It's not an Australia wide thing, it's hospital specific.

@tiredwardsister I about to say the same!

Due to financial constraints we now order exactly what we need, our food usage including bread and milk is being constantly monitored. So we order food on a named basis now rather than just ordering say 10 sandwich bags for the evening meal because we don't know who will need feeding. Before this I've given parents a sandwich bag if there's one left over but now its much harder as we are not meant to have spare food lying around.

A few of my colleagues used to insist parents didn't leave. It used to really annoy me, because they can leave. Most don't want to though, other parents can be very judgy though.

Thank you for thanking me (hope that makes sense). Im actually leaving in two weeks Ive had enough and Im off to do something significantly less stressful (still in my beloved NHS). I dont wish to rerail this thread but please speak to anyone that will listen out about your NHS. In 35 + years I have never seen it this bad or staff so demoralised the vast majority of us are here for you, you are our reason for coming to work, we care about you but are struggling in an almost impossible situation. I'm tired of reading on MN that you are getting third world health care you are not (Ive been a patient myself recently), and its free regardless of who you are and even if you've never paid a penny on tax and NI.

Wow tough thread.

Hope you're OK OP

This is not the hospital’s fault, your DH should be staying in the ward every night so you can sleep at home.

That said, I spent about 4 nights in hospital with my teenager and there was only one other person in same bay for a few days.

I was totally exhausted following due to some gynae probs of my own, the stress and hours in an airless A&E waiting room. Honestly, it’s the best I’d ever slept. My youngest was 2.5 at the time - 4 days off.

The other bays were fuller though, so we must have just got lucky.

@tiredwardsister I was very grateful for the lunch bags when I got them. I much preferred the cheese sandwich to the fancy M+S ones sold downstairs 😂
I am another one who is very thankful for everything you do. I think we are amazingly lucky with the NHS. It's not perfect...but we are so lucky to have it.
@buttercuplizzy I hope you got to sleep at home last night with your husband staying with your little boy and I hope he recovers soon. It must be incredibly boring for him stuck in bed poor little guy.
Best wishes to both of you 💐

@Somuchgoo

I'm sorry that your child has been in hospital long term. That must be so hard and I hope things are better now?

The OP is talking about a different situation- a shorter term stay where it's very much the expectation that each patient has an adult with them more or less 24 hours a day.

I've been in the same situation many times with my DD - regular periodic admissions of a week or so.

The hospital need the parents there to occupy their child, give drinks, feed them, take to toilet etc but for the parents, they give as much care as they do on post-natal wards, in my experience - ie, virtually none.

They just don't have the resources (or interest) in supporting the parents.

OP - I'm so sorry. You just be at the end of your tether. It's a shit situation for you and I hope you get it sorted x

Sorry if this has already been asked (I've read all OPs posts but not all the rest) but why is he in hospital for 3 weeks with a broken leg?

You have a DH problem.

Unless there is a massive drip feed that your DH also has some sort of medical needs, I can't for the life of me understand why you have both concluded a 50:50 split is equitable in the circumstances.

Is he doing half of the pregnancy? No? Then he does the rest of the nights. Don't put your or your baby's health at risk.

*"fucking hell. do people really think that?
of course hospital staff needs to take care of the patient as a whole.

parents cannot always take time out of other family/caring commitments or work or not fit (like the op) to care for relatives in hospital."*
Three issues:
Yes we have play leaders (only on weekdays 9-5), volunteers, student nurses, entertainers etc to help with the children but we also have 28+ chidlren (we're only staffed for 21) 4 HDU (we're only staffed for 2). Of course the OP should be given support and help but it cannot be guaranteed as all of the above could get involved in something that requires immediate support and it cant be say in the OPs case everynight because we need to share our limited resources around. As I said above this doesn't mean the staff shouldn't try and help the OP but it has to be within reasonable limits.
Secondly at the risk of sounding callous if your child was ill at home you would have to manage parents do "take time out of other family commitments or work" to care for family at home.
Lastly children in hospital especially small children in an unfamiliar environment need their parents when I started nursing parents visiting was restricted we know how traumatic this is for children and why we now allow one parent 24 hours a day.

OP; If you're doing alternating shifts with your H then you are going home and getting sleep every other night right? Nights with a newborn are worse! You're sounding super entitled in your OP.

Arrange your own food and ask if they have a bed.

As long as your son is getting the very best care I think you need to accept the rest. Hope your son is home and well soon.

Do you realise what a nurse does within one shift, 15 patients often or not they don't get time for a break, numerous paperwork, liasing with doctors and other specialists. They have duty of care for their patients. It's down to your dh to relieve you in order for you to get rest, I've been in hospital with dd when I was pregnant my dh finished work and then we swapped. It's what most parents do.

@tiredwardsister may I respectfully point out that the NHS is not free. It is free at the point of delivery and is paid for by the people for the people. The very fact that there is a misnomer about it being free is the core issue. For decades now people have been made to feel grateful for suboptimal care because it's free. Suboptimal standards are never acceptable and had people risen up two decades ago, the NHS wouldn't be where it is now.

Thank you for what you have done and the care you have given. But please acknowledge things aren't always great.

But free at point of use is relevant I think as some people do misuse it because they can. It does also mean that people aren't denied healthcare just because they can't afford it, or they aren't selling their homes or going into a ridiculous amount of debt for life saving treatment. I agree things aren't great though and there's many ways the NHS could and should be improved- no one should put up with a crap healthcare system because they feel 'grateful'. I do find the comparisons some do to third world countries as the PP mentioned though distasteful. I was born in one and travel back fairly regularly (covid period aside) and it does not compare at all the to NHS. Admittedly it's a low bar so not saying we should think it's amazing and awesome but some proportionality wouldn't go amiss. Plenty do take it for granted here and are only really bothered now things are hitting breaking point and it might affect them- staff have been crying out for years about the issues.

The hospital owe you nothing. It's not their problem you are pregnant. Sorry, you're being ridiculous