English thing or an english generational thing?

[Winniethepig]

I'm Australian and my partner is
English, I have had two births, one on the NHS and one in Australia on our NHS equivalent.

Tonight our visiting in laws asked me to compare the births, and I had to say all in all the Australian birth was better and the one on the NHS was pretty horrific.

In short the NHS gave me a stretch and sweep without even asking, under the guise of an examination, which was excruciating. Followed by an extremely delayed epidural (I had to be augmented with hormones, and they said I could have the drip but had to wait for the epi, and every doctor and midwife gave me different reasons), only tk have it cut off to push, and then was stitched up with hardly any pain relief.

Compared to Australia, Epidural with 30 mins of asking, Epidural left in for the entire time through to stitches; and no examinations without gas and air or someone talking me through it.

Basically they told me; well can't we agree that your babies are here now, and just draw a line beneath it all? Then MIL said, well I had episiotomies without being asked (in the 80's) and I don't complain.

Honestly, why ask? If you just want to shut it down.

Is this an English thing? Am I supposed to just give a happy response, or is it just that generation?

Is it unreasonable to give an actual honest answer?

It's nothing to do with being British. Every nation is proud and defensive of their national products.

Go and tell a French that Australian wine is better and they'll laugh and tell you you clearly know nothing about wine.

I was talking to an Australian asking if the airport TV programme was real and they really made such a fuss about fruit and seeds getting in. She got really defensive going on about the protection of Australia's agriculture.

We're all guilty if it.

You have a low bar.

I’d say it’s an (older) generational thing, especially the ‘well I had things worse and it was fine’ attitude.

The NHS is a shambles for maternity care, it’s why I had electives with both my births, as you’re a lot less likely to be at the mercy of overworked midwives during the most vulnerable time of your life

The NHS is a medieval torture chamber compared to some other countries. Endoscopy is offered with sedation as standard in other countries. I had to have my cervix burned with no sedation on the NHS. I go abroad for many treatments , I don't know why the British say it's the envy of the world it's really not.

I gave birth with zero pain relief on the NHS, it wasn't offered and they kept saying I wasn't in labour on the phone. By the time I arrived I was 10cm dilated and pushing didn't even have gas and air.

Probably this (in my experience). I have a chronic issue that every couple of years I have to have treated through minor surgeries. I had 3 in the UK under NHS and all had recovery issues, nothing went 100%. I've had 3 now in the US and it's been blissful. No waiting times and recoveries as expected.
I'm not posting to get into debate about the US system, it's not perfect and neither is the NHS.

There is a very good reason why certain foodstuffs, seeds, etc aren't allowed in. It's to do with our biosecurity laws. It has nothing whatsoever to do with us thinking our products are better. It's because we have a very unique ecosystem and the introduction of feral pests such as camels, cane toads etc have shown what can go wrong and introducing anything else that could get out of hand means that our unique flora and fauna would end up suffering even more.

www.biosecurity.gov.au/

Sorry to derail from the thread everyone!

Every time I see lantana being used as a garden plant here I twitch slightly, having grown up on a property where it was an absolute scourge...

@regularNameChangerVersion21 I have given birth in a European country and in UK and can confirm that the car in UK was far superior!

The nhs has been a mess recently. In real terms it's very underfunded, despite the bollocks woo stats we are fed. The government needs to step up, According to the NHS Confederation:

The NHS has had real terms cut in funding this year of between £4 billion and £9.4 billion, based on either GDP deflator or CPI respectively.

On the other hand, the Australian system is run on Medicare. Is that what people want? An insurance based system? I'd prefer to have an honest government which funded the nhs properly, although I'd pay more tax for it.

I had a fantastic experience on the NHS with both of mine. By contrast my GP in Australia was terrible! You had to call at your designated appointment time to find out how many hours behind she was running and when I had an 8.30 slot she didn’t arrive until 9am 🙄

Yanbu. NHS midwifery 'care' is appalling in many cases. Needs a massive overhaul and a total change in attitude. Arrogant is my description

Midwifery isn't just about funding. It's the culture as much as anything. Having read all the reports of maternity services in recent years I can't express my despair, especially as my baby was injured by said 'care'.

However many services we have had over the years have been outstanding, including recent scoliosis surgery...a 9 hour operation which wouldn't not have been needed had the birth injury not occurred.

Why are you extrapolating one conversation with your in-laws to be either an “English thing” or a “generational English thing”. It is just your in-laws thing.

I don't think you understand what Medicare is in Australia.

Medicare is the NHS equivalent, its not insurance. Australia has a large private heath insurance and private hospital network designed to take pressure off the public system.

Medicare provides HCPs with a payment based on the service they provide, each item number has a corresponding amount. This amount isn't high, and in order to continue to operate most HCP's charge over and above with a gap fee. To be honest, this isn't that bad a system, people who can't afford to pay get concessions or these services for free, and those that can pay, do. This means its often faster to get appointments because there is a semi commercial interest to care for you in a fast and effective manner.

Is it perfect? Not really but having people pay for some treatments strips a lot of inefficiencies out because you have less no shows for people who are given free appts but then don't bother because it doesn't cost them anything.

And people over a certain income (I think it's $90,000 for a single person, double that for a family) pay a surcharge on the Medicare levy (part of the income tax system) if they don't have an adequate level of private hospital health insurance.

It's quite a different system to the NHS and as OP says, it's not without its faults (exacerbated by the federal/state split.)

But at the fundamental level, it's not an insurance based system any more than the NHS is.

I loved all my births on the NHS, even though they weren't perfect, but you're entitled to share your own perception of your experiences. Just bear in mind that generally speaking a first birth will be much harder, so the comparison between healthcare providers might be a little more skewed than if you were comparing your 2nd and 3rd births.

Maternity services in the UK are completely screwed- underfunded and stretched to the limit. I don’t know anyone who would disagree.

Your ILs’ behaviour isn’t just an English thing, but there is a certain sort of English person who cannot cope at all with the idea that other countries might be doing things better and take any suggestion that things could be improved as unpatriotic snowflakery. The Brexit voting fits the picture perfectly. Not specifically English though- MAGA Trump voters are very similar.

Of course you are not unreasonable to have told the truth.

I'm sorry your recent experience was so awful. You have every right to complain and, no, it is not an English tendency to put up, shut up and smile. People complain about the NHS all the time, often on here.

It has to be said that many women experience positives when having a baby under NHS care (I did); a lot depends on the area, the individual unit and the staff who are on duty at the time. If you had another child (I'm not recommending :)), your experience could well be extremely different.

The NHS varies according to which party is in government. I remember how run down it became under Thatcher (followed for a brief period by Major), and how remarkably well and quickly it picked up under Labour. I worked for the NHS during that time. We all know what has happened more recently under the Tories.

Congratulations on your two lovely children, you've done well.

Not unreasonable at all. If it was better, it was better. It's nice to have the NHS (when it works) but let's not pretend everything we do is amazing. I think we need to look to the likes of Australia, France and Germany for a different way of funding and delivering healthcare, what we are doing now isn't working, and does a disservice to patients and staff.
I'm an NHS nurse by the way.

Sounds like an awful experience!

As an anaesthetist, I'm a big fan of putting the epidural in before the drip to cause contractions is started. We know it's going to be horrifically painful, so what's the point of forcing that pain on the woman? (From a slightly selfish point of view, much easier to put an epidural in a pain-free woman who is sitting still, rather than having to work around contractions!) but sadly midwives often seem to be opposed to this.