Not allowed private room

[Spamfritterss]

for my birth I made it clear I wanted to pay for a private room. When giving birth 3 weeks ago I had a bit of a traumatic birth and was told I couldn’t have a private room with bed for my husband due to needing an extra eye kept on me. I was put on a noisy ward where I was placed at the end by the window the row of beds next to me all had their curtains partially closed so you couldn’t see me unless you walked down. I didn’t have someone keep an eye on me I had checks but no more than any one else. My husband and I had been awake for way over 15 hours so I sent him home as one of us had to get some sleep. The ward was full of people and partners chatting all night as well as crying babies. All I wanted was to be alone with my husband. I had no clue what I was doing couldn’t move properly and spent the whole night crying over what had just happened to me. 2 of my mum friends have just given birth and where able to have a private room. I just feel really resentful. I get they thought it was medically necessary but no one could see me and I didn’t get any extra checks

Busy wards can get a bit much, which is why I had a home birth with my 3rd (and last) DC.

But ultimately, they must've thought you'd be safer.

You can only have them if there is one available and it's suitable for you to be in it and no one else has an important clinical reason for needing one. Someone who had just given birth to a stillborn baby for example.

There not guaranteed I honestly thought you would have understood that.

OP isn't talking about free ones. Some NHS hospitals have separate private pay per night postnatal suites.

Exactly what @Chowtime says. It's not like booking a hotel room where they can guarantee that they can keep the room free.

My sister didn't even get a midwife. There was nobody available because there were two emergencies and her husband ended up delivering the baby.

Rooms are generally allocated according to medical need or to facilitate tragic circumstances. It is rare they would have the opportunity to allocate to requests.

I'm talking about the private ones! I stand by what I said.

OP, postnatal care on these wards is utterly crap and there is not enough staff. YANBU to feel resentful.

Yes, our local hospital has this. The 'hotel' they call it but they use the rooms if someone else needs them, pre-booked or not.

As if the OP thought she could just 'demand' a free nhs room and then be pissed of when she didn't get it!

There's no entitlement to a paid-for room, they are allocated based on needs. Sometimes more people have asked for them than there are rooms available; sometimes someone wants one but their clinical condition means they can't have one (as with you).

Our hospital allows people to request the nhs private rooms for a fee but if they are needed for medical reasons you don't get your request. Outside of London there are very few private wings.

It depends on the hospital. In some the private rooms are a separate entity, paid-for, not NHS, different staff, and they do not accept anyone who hasn't pre-booked.

Whilst they may not have been doing direct checks they would have been able to see/hear things whenever they were in the bay so would be alerted far more quickly than they would be if you were in a private room.
The only way to guarantee a private room is to pay for private healthcare and even then when there are significant issues women are often transferred to NHS wards
I'm sorry this was your experience but try not to ruminate on it and focus on bonding as a family.
Birthing plans rarely go to plan. The most important thing is that you and baby are well.
You can ask fir a debrief with lead midwife if this would be helpful

Really? Which hospitals are these?

They aren't guaranteed though, even if you're paying for one. At my hospital
if there were any not in use for medical reasons the 'extras' could be paid for on the day.

If you're out on the postnatal ward where it's horrendously busy you'll have people passing by often who can raise the alarm if they spot something amiss. It's not necessarily a midwife doing extra checks, but the maternity assistants passing by frequently and keeping an eye out.

For example of a private wing under NHS building roof, look up St Thomas's, used to be called Lansdell Suite (now Westminster), people could labour under NHS and have postnatal on the private ward with their own rooms and staff. Or they could do the whole lot privately.

You really need to stop focusing on what you wanted, what your friends got and spoiling this time with your new baby. Labour and giving birth are unpredictable. Yes, you are dealing with the physical and emotional event but the midwives and doctors are dealing with many women who are also going through their own physical and emotional events too. Sadly, some people lose babies, some babies are poorly, other women may have prior mental or physical difficulties that make them having a private room a priority. I do think it is poor that husbands were there chatting through the night. This is not allowed at our hospital- 10pm is kick out. Mums are encouraged to look after either own babies (just like you have to at home) or if you are struggling the mw will come and help settle baby. There is no need for dads to be on the unit all night.

OP I was put in a bay with broken furniture when I give birth.

A woman who had a traumatic birth was then put in a bay on our ward nearest the bathroom and wasn't allowed to have her curtains drawn. The two times they were drawn the couple were told off.

Everyone except one annoying couple then behaved themselves but it was still noisy.

Anyway they didn't get any more checks than anyone else on the ward but were clearly placed there as anytime anyone walked around they could be seen. I was actually in the most hidden away bay as I was the lowest risk.

Was the OP at St Thomas's then?

Your friend’s birth experiences are totally irrelevant, it’s not a competition!
Try and focus on the fact that you’re home with a healthy baby, that’s far more important than any potential private room.

Who knows?

I'm sorry that things didn't work out the way you would have preferred OP, but in this day and age, I think with the NHS as it is, you should be grateful that your baby was delivered safely, and you came home at all. A girl I know died in childbirth recently, which was something I thought was a thing of the past.

I'm annoyed with myself for allowing myself to get sidetracked but yes, OP, those posters saying be grateful you have a healthy baby are right. Try to focus on that.

The only way to guarantee a private room is to go fully private. Clinical need trumps money in an NHS hospital, and rightly so.

It's always safer in a bay, whether you were by a window or not. The fact you are surrounded by other patients means in the event of an emergency another patient can potatially summon help, as staff cannot monitor for 24 hours a day.
You said your birth was traumatic, have you spoken to your midwife or health visitor? It's often helped to have a debrief, their are specialist nurses that you can be referred to. I had a wonderful nurse specialist who helped me unpack all of the feelings around my sons traumatic birth when I was pregnant with my second.