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?

That's awful

Shame the NHS staff have to tolerate this behaviour

@Hateam We need a Hattie style matron in every hospital!

Yep!

NHS wards are Dickensian in my opinion. When I broke my hip I was admitted to an NHS hospital, allocated to a broken bed and had no bathing facilities apart from a WC and a washbasin with cold water only and no plug. The physiotherapist propped herself against a nearby wall and made no effort to help or advice people on regaining mobility. Extremely vulnerable patients - aged over 90 - had their hearing aids removed so that the "Health Care Assistants" who had no concept of "care", could comply with the latest hospital rule of temperatures being taken via the ear. The aged female patient next to me was crying because she couldn't hear and the bullying Health Care Assistant couldn't be bothered to fit the hearing aids back in place.
It was a nightmare experience and I am now practically bankrupting myself paying for private medical cover in order to avoid a repitition of that dreadful situation.

Speak to the nurse, she is probably upsetting others and no one has spoken up. She is just rude

I was in hospital recently after a major op and a young woman in the bed opposite had non-stop visitors (I had absolutely no problem with that) but then she would talk on her phone in a low urgent voice for hours. By 12.30am I snapped but wasn't rude, reminded her of the time and asked her to (please) make her calls in the corridor. She immediately hung up and it never happened again - I just don't think she was aware. Everyone else on the ward came up and thanked me!

Talk to the nurses. They will aak her to keep it down. They might say you told them though 😵‍💫

Congrats op. Please ask the midwives to help you. I was in the pharmacy this week. I handed in my prescription took a number and sat down with the other 20 folks waiting. When your prescription is ready. One of the Two softly spoken pharmacist will call your name. There was a woman on speaker, foreign language, turned up at highest volume having a full on conversation with the person on the other end. None of us could hear the pharmacist so we all just sat there. After about 30 min I went to the counter to ask… he said he had being calling my name a few times - I just couldn’t hear it over the racket! Please speak up!!!

I had this at 4am when I had my son. I was very sleep deprived. Went to the nurses station and told them if they didn't shut her up I was going to kill her! They soon sorted her out thankfully

Some people are just eyewateringly selfish. When I had my ovaries removed I was on a ward with a woman who was either crying or shouting into a phone. She also had about 6 visitors at a time too. Everyone on that ward had had surgery for less than happy reasons. I had to ask nurses to ask her to shut the fuck up so I could get some sleep. Perhaps she had main character syndrome but a 40+ woman acting like a petulant child is pretty fucking tiresome when you’re absolutely knackered.

I completely sympathise, I spent 10 nights in hospital after my baby was born and had maybe 6 or 7 other mums come and go on the ward in that time, all but one of them would watch TikTok without headphones and have all their phone conversations on speaker. It absolutely baffled me, apparently consideration for others and your surroundings is not a social norm! I think it should be ward rules to use headphones when watching videos and to not have loud speaker conversations, but equally it shouldn’t have to be a rule it should just be basic manners!

Well I was one & had to train an extra 18 months after 3 yrs of nurse training to become a midwife. No the person who said there were nurses in the first place then still persists to acknowledge they were wrong feels they are the superior.

you bet wrong…… how old are you?

I think the issue is that one poster was stating there aren't nurses on a postnatal ward, and the other poster then said for the case in hand i.e. telling someone working on the ward who has the authority to speak to patients, it actually doesn't matter whether those people are nurses or midwives.

IMO it's actually often really hard to tell what the different colour uniforms mean.

Ugh I hated being on the maternity ward.

The woman I was next to had her bed surrounded by visitors all day AND members of her family on video call.

I didn't know I could feel rage like I did and I actually told the midwife I'm scared I'll lash out.

I'm so glad I returned to normal once I was home but you've got my utmost sympathy OP cos the maternity ward is what nightmares are made of.

My sister wasn't able to sleep after a long & difficult delivery because she shared with an awful woman who blathered on endlessly on the phone. When the neighbor had 10 visitors arrive shortly before visiting hours ended & they overstayed and showed no signs of leaving, my sister did end up lashing out & screaming "shut the F up! Shut the F up! I haven't had a minute of sleep because of you and now you have a bus load of people screeching in the middle of the night!" The midwife arrived and kicked everyone out. My brother was on the lift with the husband the next day whilst he was blustering about how my sister "wasn't allowed to speak to him that way" and he was going to have words. His plan went out the window when he arrived in the room to find my giant, terrifying BIL (in uniform) hovering over my sister. They didn't hear a peep from either of them the rest of their stay.

Wait until she's asleep and then throttle the bitch.

Did you tell her to stop?

I've definitely told people to stop when they were being too loud.

I understand your frustration. When I was on the maternity ward the woman next to me was watching a documentary on her phone late at night with the speaker on instead of using earphones like a normal person. The documentary was about children getting rapd and murde*d. Me and my husband slagged her off loudly so she would hear us, like “read the room”, “what kind of psycho watches that after giving birth”, etc. We heard her crying but I don’t even feel guilty cos I didn’t hear her phone again.

I was in a hospital and someone was watching a video without earphones late at night.

I just shouted over "do you have earphones?"

I don't take it off them

We finally give discharged and we’ve had a night at home away from the least relaxing place in the world.

Yes at 1am on the second night I couldn’t stand it any longer and went to her bay, where her and her partner were having a loud conversation and basically said that they were incredibly inconsiderate, there were three other new families around them and they needed to be aware of the impact they were having on others. Her response was so you think I’m loud?

they did shut up for a little bit but normal service resumed!

There's a woman who lives down our street who walks round and round the block on a daily basis having loud conversations on speaker phone. So annoying. The conversations are not in English which is probably a good thing. DH says he's tempted to get out his angle grinder to drown her out as she walks past!

Whenever this happens on trains I have a huge urge to speakerphone Rage Against the Machine on maximum.

Never done it and the idea is obviously so PA it's sad, but people can be such dicks.

It's probably because they want to feel as though they have some kind of power in an otherwise empty shell of a life. Like teenagers and angry people that walk in front of cars, forcing them to slow down.

Congratulations on baby ! hope you get out of there and proper sleep soon (well, probably in about 7 years time going by my experience).

Off topic, but when my mum had me (early 70’s), there were strict visiting hours, dad not allowed in except for an hour a day, babies taken away over night and only bought back to mum for feeding) which sounds Victorian now - BUT it meant the ward was quiet(er). And mum made great friends with her bed neighbours who remain close family friends still. So not all bad …

Not the maternity ward, but I was admitted to Urgent care for a few days after an anaphylactic shock thing, never been allergic to anything, all very weird. Anyway, opposite me was a mh patient who had a one on one nurse watching her 24/7. They struck up a conversation and would not stop, early hours of the morning. I eventually went to the nurse in charge who was working at the other end of the ward. She was quietly fierce with them both, thank god.

Another time, following a very serious accident, a woman opposite kept making pain noises, I felt for her, probably really was suffering (we were in the emergency section) but this was days and she only did it when she had the ten visitors round her bed. There was no escape, I couldn’t walk.

It's because that's how they see scripted reality stars using them (TOWIE etc). Because they're thick and easily suggestible, and have no self-awareness, they think that's how its done.
Ask the nursing staff to move you, say it's affecting your mental health and will ultimately affect your friends physical health ;-). Congrats btw

This behaviour definitely drives many of us to utter despair, anger and to see red

I wonder whether if women did physically lash out in response the hospitals would quickly change the rules to ban any audible noise from phones, or taking of phone calls on wards?

I know violence is never an answer - but a few cases of phones tossed out of windows by stretched to breaking point new mums on maternity wards could lead to fast and decisive action by the authorities?!