OMG! Rupert Lowe: comments on maternity/labour wards

[drummingfingers]

Rupert Lowe* is the MP for Great Yarmouth (controversial enough to get kicked out of Reform, earlier this year and is now sitting as an Independent).

Just hopped on to his Facebook page as I assumed it was a joke, but no its true:

He posted yesterday:
Giving birth is obviously an incredibly challenging experience for the mother - trust me, nobody is denying that. I do think though, that fathers should be shown more respect by the NHS during the whole process.
No food provided, no basic bedding, nothing.
The father is having a child too - potentially staying multiple nights, sleeping on the floor or a chair?
If the NHS can find hundreds of millions for translation/interpretation and the rest of the diversity bullshit, then surely a few campbeds in each ward isn't such an impossible investment? Maybe a bowl of pasta for the dad, who does actually pay for that meal through his own taxes?
I've asked the Department of Health to reconsider their approach.
It would be nice if fathers weren't treated as some awkward afterthought, during the process and often across wider society.
Let's give dads the respect they deserve.

Well, Mumsnetters, should the NHS really be focussing on this.....surely a partner could pop to a hospital snack bar or bring in his own snacks FFS. Does this MP genuinely think its the most pressing thing for the NHS to providing extra hot meals?????????????

• Rupert was the savvy MP who reported to Border Force a dingy he saw off the coast of Yarmouth as he was worried that it was full of illegals.....he proclaimed "I am chasing them now"..... but it was just some charity rowers raising funds for MND.

Utterly ridiculous, blokes need to go home at night to enable safer single sex spaces. Women on a ward are at their most vulnerable post birth and drifting in and out of sleep - no way would I want my baby or I to sleep next to or near an unknown random bloke. There are enough assaults on mixed sex wards as it is without creating more opportunities.

Food wise, it’s all bloody horrid at hospital. Maybe the men could have access to hospital cooking facilities and make some better quality meals for their partners? Seriously though, the beauty of having visitors is they can wheel in food from home or grab a favourite take out.

Personally I’d rather my husband had a good nights sleep at home so he could be more proactive during the hospital day.

Obviously it’s differebt if a baby is very ill and the mum has her own room.

FFS Men are not the priority on post natal wards. And shouldn't even be staying over night.

It should be a single sex ward, not an over crowded mixed sex.

Tons of other things money should be spent on, on labour wards rather than food for men. Some wards wont even provide milk for babies neved mind men.

I wish they would prioritise parents who HAVE to stay on the wards with their sick children. I barely slept, washed, ate or used the toilet the entire week as I was expected to do feeds and changes for my very sick baby who had wires everywhere and by day 7 I was passing out from exhaustion.
Personally I detest postnatal wards and think it’s horrendous women have no privacy or rest post birth.

They do give dads camp beds though? My DH got one each time but then we had a private room for medical reasons and it was expected he would be staying overnight. This was nhs. They dont expect men to stay on open recovery wards overnight
He did not get a bed in the delivery room because that wouldn't work you need the space round the mothers bed in an emergency

Agree completely

I’m not sure what I’m meant to be so outraged about. Would it be a disaster if men staying overnight in a postnatal ward were made a bit more comfortable? It’s not like it would be his number one priority.

I’ve had 3 kids. On one birth my DH was allowed to stay, the other 2 not due to covid. I will never agree that men shouldn’t be allowed to stay. On one of the times he had to leave I was extremely ill so in for a while, and being left overnight (and being “looked after” by the staff) was the worst thing about the whole experience.

A bowl of pasta? Why not some proper British food?

Not agreeing with any of the RL comments, but about translators. My unit recently spent £22 000 on translators for a single patient in a single weekend. That seems unreasonable.

he is a complete idiot. the NHS pays about as much in compensation for bodged maternity care as it pays for the care itself as thing are so stretched and underfunded. But bedding for the father to be? good grief. I had a look at his Facebook page as I hadn't actually heard of him and every single post is vomit inducing. What does it say about our country that people like him are sitting MPs 😲😟

Jesus, Mary and Holy St. Joseph.🙄

Is thon Reform reject saying the NHS needs to provide for healthy men with fuck all wrong with them, because the women who have just birthed their child, can't make them dinner?🤯

And it’s possible that some of the men who insist on staying by the woman’s side at all times are there not as ‘support’, but to ensure she doesn’t get a moment alone with staff, in case she might get a chance to tell someone about what’s been going on at home… domestic violence, or abuse of other children…

Why would women want other people’s husbands on the ward at such a vulnerable time?

So he wants open post natal wards - wards, not rooms- on which women are struggling to breastfeed, and with intimate care, often in pain, bleeding, to be full of camp beds with men relaxing on them after a bowl of pasta?

I wonder how he feels about mixed sex hospital wards generally? Is he at least consistent in his belief that vulnerable women are allowed no privacy from strange men? Does he support mixed sex toilets too?

Agree. The idea that translation and interpretation services are a waste of money is absurd. Can he not see the likely consequences if a doctor can’t understand a patient, and vice versa?

I’d love to see a breakdown of that.

I’m with him. My DH had to sleep on a thin mattress on the floor for 3 nights. He got an eye infection and we both went home knackered and unwell.

He clearly doesn't give a shit about women being able to communicate with their HCPs during childbirth.

No, the poor men who can't feed or look after themselves because their partner is in labour, birthing a child, being stitched up, breastfeeding, recovering, etc. totally need hospital staff, patients and resources to make them more comfortable.

And they have the cheek to ask why women are having fewer children nowadays.🙄

Similar situation to me... We arrived at the hospital at 7pm amist heavy snow, I gave birth at 4am, by the time I was stitched up and hosed down and was on a ward it was 7am, and DH was then chucked out. He'd obviously been awake all night, and we lived nearly an hour away - not much fun on snowy rural roads. I only later discovered that he was too tired to safely drive, so curled up in the freezing car and slept for an hour before going back in to see if he could find a coffee or food (and hopefully take me home as soon as he was allowed back onto the ward.)

It really wouldn't have been too difficult for the staff to have given him some toast when they brought me some after the birth, since the canteen was closed and vending machines were empty.

Your performative outrage is fooling non one OP.

The country on the whole is absolutely sick of the lying, gaslighting and deceit over these crazy levels of immigration and the total out of control illegal immigraton. And some confected non story about fathers on maternity wards made to look like who knows what isn’t going to change that.

You might need to try a little harder to push your far left pro open borders agenda.

mist hospitals have a shop and canteen - dad can get a meal from there. Even vending machines have meals for the microwave, so can be heated up on the ward. As for sleeping in a chair - it’s the same on children’s wards - you sleep next to the bed. I don’t see what the difference is

I can't believe the amount of vitriol and casual racism this has post has attracted. It's truly terrifying that a nation that fought fascism is now hoiking bosoms at a**ehole whining that he wasn't served dinner and provided a comfy bed whilst his wife struggled to deliver his child (can imagine size of head if has his genes). Diddums. He should have disinterred Nanny who could have run to rescue with his Blankie - whilst losing various, decomposing bits and pieces in the process.

Until basic standards are met on how mothers are treated in NHS hospitals, I really couldn't give a crap how my husband fetches food during/around the birth.

When I was in labour with our first and treated like shit, he was offered tea, toasts, and we had plenty of snacks in the bag. He also went to get dinner at the hospital cafeteria in the evening after the birth.

In the end, I waited 9h to be moved to the postnatal ward after a C-section, I was given 1 toast in the afternoon (after 18h labour and then surgery). Then I had to wait for breakfast the next day because they only transferred me at 9pm after the dinner round.

Though luck, they said. I was lucky to get a thermos of tea from my husband before they kicked him out of the ward.

There was a little kitchen with fridge and microwave on the children’s ward DD was in, for parents to use. Squash provided. That seems reasonable. More than that isn’t a priority at this point in the life of the NHS tbh.

Disagree that men need to be fed, no issue with bringing own snacks or going to hospital cafe.

There is an increasing demand though for men to be able to stay with the mum and baby overnight. I had sn EMCS at 7.30pm after 2 days of contractions and that first night in hospital alone in a room with my baby, hsrdly being able to move has given me PTSD. There aren’t enough staff to help women in hospitals. Until that is fixed, someone else needs to help.

My hospital has since created a family bay where men can stay overnight, due to the demand as women haven’t been getting enough basic help after birth.