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

Senior NHS nurse here, I completely understand that you’re annoyed given that you didn’t have additional checks but the justification for this is two part- 1. Being in a bay does increase the chances of quicker identification of an issue with you/ baby. Two incidents when I worked in maternity occurred in a bay, one was a seizing mum who we were alerted to by other mums/ partners, and another was when we were alerted by other mums that a mum had dropped her newborn baby off the bed, she was very drowsy and hadn’t even realized. 2. They were covering their arses incase something did happen to you- if you had deteriorated in a side room they would have to justify during an investigation why, given your risk factors, you were put in a side room. Putting you in a bay mitigates this risk as they could justify their decision to put you there.

Im sorry you had a bad experience, sounds like you would benefit from a birth debrief. This can be requested through your midwifery team. I feel you may be deflecting some of your birth trauma onto the side room issue.

Sending love ❤️

Which means she was treated badly.

A busy maternity ward is hell on earth.

People very frequently say "as if you think .... Blah blah blah" to belittle the person they are talking about. They are saying "as if you could actually be that stupid" because it's unbelievable to them.

We are not stupid.

BlouseyBrownMalone is deriding the OP and mocking her to make her feel stupid. It's nasty. And the fact that you can't see that makes you stupider than you are trying to make us all feel.

Sorry it sounds like you had a horrible birth. You might be fixating on the lack of private room as it was probably the final straw or you felt like it was something you shoulf be able to control. Hopefully you can move on and enjoy being at home with your baby. If the birth stuff is affecting you then do seek help as birth trauma is very real.

I knew the next day once the spinal block and epidural had worn off would be extremely painful and hard I thought if he could go home and get 4 hours of decent sleep it would be better and he would be safe to drive the car back.

Sil was placed in that location when he baby had passed away, on the ward, with all the mums and babies. It was so traumatic for her she had a psychotic episode and even then she was insulted and treated as if it was her failing.
The NHS fails women and babies and is an utter disgrace. I am so sorry this happened to you OP. All women should have the option of a private room.

Cos you aren't there by yourself - you are expected to care for a screaming baby, straight after you have potentially had days without any sleep.

Cos failures at this point in care, have massive financial implications and costs to mental health.

But y'know, giving birth is JUST LIKE every other medical situation... 🙄🤔😬

Also WHY THE FUCK do we fail to see the need as a nation, yet other leading countries see this as essential.

Why do we also have to race to the bottom for women's health?

Hope you are okay now op.
I'm a bit fed up with being told that we should be grateful for barely adequate facilities and service, and at least you came out with a healthy baby. People forget that whilst the NHS is free at point of service, 20% of our taxes pay for it.

It could be those rooms have already been allocated to others and the people weren't there yet and they won't tell you why others are more deserving than you. Probably why they gave you a flimsy excuse.

I had a private room in hospital straight across from the midwife station because my dad died whilst I was still in the labour suite.

Plans had been put in place before they brought me up so if you'd passed my room you'd have assumed it was empty. I'd have been furious if other new mums were told why I'd been given a room and they hadn't.

Sometimes things happen that are outwith anyone's control

The clinical need thing happens in my hospital too. It's a new maternity wing opened in the past decade and mostly private rooms, but there are two bays of four beds each. Anyone who's had a section has to go in the bays for their first night, and I'm guessing it's the same for anyone else who's had complications.

I was on the ward for the first night on my first (EMCS) and then moved to a private room. Second one (slightly complicated ELCS with a big blood loss) was during covid and I was on the ward both nights as they understandably weren't doing the cleaning necessary to move people around.

Birth can be brutal, postnatal wards can be brutal. Actually non maternity wards can be brutal too, my dad had some awful experiences even in private hospitals. I think we cushion women from this a bit and it doesn't help.

You know the NHS is short staffed when it comes to this! Hope your sister and her baby are both ok.

But if you were in a private room they may not have had the staff available to check on you as often as you were checked on on the ward. It's not about the number of checks you got v other patients on the same ward. It's about how many checks you got v how many you may have gotten in a private room. I understand you are upset, but they had their reasons.

I think the only thing they did wrong is that it should've been explained to you at some stage throughout your pregnancy that a private room wasn't a 100% guarantee, and they should've outlined reasons why you may not have been able to access one so you knew in advance rather than feeling like this. But you can't change what happened. You can keep feeling angry about it and give out shit about public wards and be upset, but the circumstances of the birth aren't going to change unfortunately!

Unsure why this thread has turned into the suffering Olympics 😵‍💫. I think we can all agree that post natal wards and care in general is horrific and we all deserve better!

don't know why people need to gaslight the OP and tell her her experience wasn't that bad and she should've put up because thems the rules. i had a baby abroad and i couldn't imagine having a child here- the thought of being on a ward whilst trying to sleep after a few days of labour, puts me off completely. it was hard enough in a completely private room! i'm sorry you had that awful experience OP. please don't let others dismiss it for you- it was awful and you knew what you could cope with in advance and tried to mitigate this by paying for a private room, and then that was taken away from you under the words 'care', but then it felt like you weren't cared for at all, so of course you feel cheated and robbed of being able to feel emotionally secure in your baby's first day. i hope you can get the right therapy or after birth support for this, because i know first hand how long these memories can linger.

If you wanted a private room, you should have paid for private care from day 1
You chose NHS, but wanted the same service
Never going to happen, nor should it

If it's a specific add on you can pay for, then I can only assume there was medical reason to deny you it. Or all those suites were already pre-booked by people who also paid but had greater clinical need?
By all means contact PALS and make a complaint. But there may have been a couple of valid reasons.

I think what they said to you was justified then op. I can definitely empathise why you would feel upset and not well cared for but I think with both of mine which were fairly traumatic- placental abruption etc. I had the same as you. Again my friend who lost a lot of blood and bad tear, very similar experience.

Great post by @Ozzbozz20 above

It’s so hard not to compare to your friends experiences but please work on these feelings as they aren’t helpful. I agree I think you really need to talk to someone and have a debrief. Congratulations on your beautiful baby x

You have no guarantee. I had one with my first and was in it for 4 nights with quite a large bill but me and baby had hourly obs for first 24 hours so clinical need wasn’t necessarily a barrier. I’d actually say I got far greater care in the private room than I did on the ward.

With my second, a private room wasn’t available and I ended up on the c section ward (didn’t have a section but did have a big tear but was surprised to be on that ward). I can tell you now I didn’t see any members of staff until I became on a mission to discharge myself the next morning. I felt incredibly sorry for the ladies on the ward who actually needed some help because if that was the high care ward I’d be pretty worried about what was going on on the others…

postnatal wards are shit for everyone. You’ll never be guaranteed a private room so you just have to roll with it and try and move on from it.

This was available in the London hospital that I gave birth in. It was however made very clear to me that the private rooms were on a first come first served basis. Unfortunately there wasn’t one available on the night I gave birth. My cousin gave birth a year later and was lucky enough to get a private room….. I felt happy for her fortune, not resentful and hard done by!

If you want a guaranteed private room then you need to book and pay for a fully private hospital.

If you want to guarantee a private room pay for a private delivery in a private hospital .

Hm. Had to stay in Guildford hospital for few more days , loved the ward, the curtains, the bed, the parents, the babies, the new wonder of everything

This is fairly common. Whether or not they did extra checks, if anything happened to you in a private room they'd be in the shit. When I was on the children's ward with DS they put us in a private room but literally the moment a ward bed became free we got moved because he was in for oxygen/ECG/hourly checks.

The postnatal wards are terrible though so YANBU for hating the experience. I think the trusts set them up to be awful on purpose so you get out faster.

I honestly cannot believe the nastiness on this thread.

The OP has clearly said that you can pay for a private room, and that 4 were obviously empty - but she was told she couldn't have one because they needed to monitor her regularly. They seemingly then did not perform any extra checks, according to OP.

Nowhere does OP say that she expected a free private room, or that she expected those with more complex medical or emotional needs to give up rooms for her. Jesus Christ.

OP - my hospital was like yours. They told me I could pay for a private room, and like you, was told I couldn't have one because they needed to check me more regularly. I'd had a C-section. Luckily it was all very straightforward so I wasn't too upset by this, but I can absolutely understand the disappointment. I ended up staying in an additional night and they moved me into a private room then. It was heaven compared to the main ward.

I understand. Sending you lots of love and hugs. I hope you're enjoying your newborn bubble.

YABU. You need to accept that there were clinical reasons for you to be on the open ward - respect that decision made by staff in your best interests.

You are not entitled to a single room just because you are willing to pay and there are many women in even worse situations than you who are also often left in an open bay on a post natal ward despite also wanting a single room, for example mothers who have been separated from their poorly babies who are in NICU, and mothers who have lost their babies.

You sound really self entitled, please take a reality check.