To throw my hospital bed neighbour’s phone out the window

[Sayshesheshe]

I won’t be obviously but she has spent the entire day on speaker phone seemingly to every person she’s ever met in her life.

It’s a maternity ward, I’ve slept a total of 0 hours since yesterday in between her and my adorable newborn and my tolerance is at an all time low. We’re both in tonight too and I don’t know how I’m going to survive her. She also has her phone notifications on loud.

Why are people like this?

OP you have my sympathy.
I remember this from when I gave birth to DS who is now 25!
the bloody woman in the bed opposite called all her friends to ask their views on her DD’s name.
so indelibly etched in
my memory I googled the name which was a bit unusual a few months ago and found the girl on social media.

London midwives aren’t known for their charm.

Find the nearest ‘brisk’ one and tell her to shut Miss Scream up.

Lie back, secure in the hope that the baby screams nonstop for 2 years.

Well done you! Pity there aren’t more like you because it’s without a doubt one of the most depressing, soul-destroying aspects of giving birth in an NHS hospital.

I’ve seen women desperate to get some quiet and just shut their eyes and all the time the racket is unbelievable and it’s bad enough when it’s other patients and their visitors but inexcusable when it’s actual staff who are so inconsiderate about the noise they’re making.

I had all homebirths thankfully but tales like these were one of the reasons I wanted them!

Yep,had one in the next bed to me after surgery, she was late 70’s, notifications not on silent, receiving texts all night into the early hours. Beep beep and phone would light up the ward like a Christmas tree. Who would be texting someone in their late 70’s at 2am in the morning? Plus she had the worst smokers cough too……

I have started working in a hospital and visit many wards. Patients playing music or TV through their devices with no headphones seems quite common now, as it does on public transport. And no, the staff do not seem to ask patients to be more considerate, or if they do, they are ignored. It's completely unacceptable and stressful for those trying to recover.

So we can all hear how important they are. Or they have drama.
Or the brain sizzling from a moblie theory?.
Ask for it to be used with headphones or off speaker the inconsiderate person. Or throw it!

Post natal wards are awful. With dc1 I had the misfortune of being in a bay next to a couple , the man was the loudest snorer ever. He also ate soup one night clanging the spoon on the bowl and slurping like he was a drain. I was fuming. With dc2 I was opposite a woman who repeated about 76355 times that she had waited 15 years to have her baby and so she had practiced lullabies . She sang them all
through the night and she had be loudest and worst voice I’ve ever heard it was as if she was possessed by a cat/windchime/banshee hybrid that was off key and had a nasal quality. I honestly thought I’d combust and was trying to be kind as she had obviously had a bad time . I was relieved when the woman next to her shouted at 330am ‘for FUCKS sake - we need to FUCKING sleep. STOP FUCKING SINGING’

@AgileGreenSeal
I've been known to tell staff to keep the noise levels down too.
These ladies need to rest when they can. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture and nobody should have to put up with this 24/7 phone culture.
I'm getting on a bit now so not on any SM apart from MN but over the past 30 + years it has changed beyond all recognition.

You shouldn’t need to put up with this. She wouldn’t have got 10 min into her conversation and I would have said to her or spoke straight away to the nurses. No bloody way, just rude

You can’t do this anymore in my hospital

I had this exact scenario on labour ward I spoke nicely to the midwife’s and I got put in a private room. Good luck the phone notifications are the worst sound when your sleep deprived!

They are very self important people, absolutely full of themselves

Hope you're sorted now, OP. Sleep well & congratulations 👩‍🍼🩵🩷

I’ve seen so many threads like this about every different type of ward and I honestly think it is worthy of a campaign- NHS Trusts should be saying they won’t tolerate speaker phones, or device noises at all after say 11.30. There are headphones, there are options. Imagine being on a plane where everyone watched something different and played it out loud. It wouldn’t be tolerated

I have no idea why people have started doing this. Why would anyone think this is OK?!! It is awful. Ask a nurse to tell her this need to stop. It’s a shared space and people need to rest.

Midwives / nurses do the most amazing job in ever-more difficult circumstances, but there does seem to be this expectation that birthing is traumatic, and that if you haven’t gone through an awful experience, then you haven’t done it ‘properly’. This is one reason (of many) that we put up with this sort of thing. It needs to stop!! OP - I hope it has for you now.

When I had my twins it was one of the night shift midwives/nurses that kept me awake. Walked around slamming doors and talking loudly in the corridor all night long.

It’s like there is a rule that you must not sleep in hospital after having a baby! And my mother wondered why I was in such a rush to be discharged home…

I feel your pain, I had one of these people 😩 I was counting down the hours til the morning. She was leaving her baby to go out to smoke then when the doors got locked she was over at the window and I couldn’t see for the curtains but I wasn’t convinced she wasn’t leaning her head out the window smoking. She was vaping in her hospital bed 🤦🏼‍♀️ I was the only person in the room with her so it was near impossible to be able to say something to the nurses and I didn’t have concrete proof she’d smoked out the window but I was so sure she had! The worst!

looking back it feels like it went by in seconds though. Take a video of your newborn in the middle of the night, cuddled into you. You’ll look back on it.

Hope she gets off her phone soon!

I don't think mobiles phones from that long ago had speakers, did they?
Or do you mean she was using her Nokia to call everyone?
I didn't get my first mobile until DS (now 25) was a few years old (though I think I was a bit behind the crowd!).

I get really stressed hearing speaker phones in any environment - the bus, cafes etc, God knows how I'd manage if I was in hospital. It's so much more annoying than just talking. It's the frequency or the speakers or something.

I’m a midwife where I work there are 3 private rooms and you can’t pay for them. They’re kept for either mental health patients with plans postnatal / mums of babies that are very unwell to shield them from that or infectious patients/ postnatal readmissions. They are always in high demand and never not empty.

Yes, in a fairly large NHS teaching hospital. In hindsight, I’d also have married a millionaire, but…

Technically a midwife is a type of nurse. Baby nurse ☺️

There is a special place in hell for people who do not use headphones.