elcs was booked - they've just phoned up to move it!!!

[soppypreggyloon]

i went to see consultant to book my elcs on 29th March. All good, we were given 20th April and we were the only ones booked in the diary for that day.
i have since sorted child care and also family have booked to come down after because none of them live locally.
i've just had a phone call from the delivery suite to say that they are moving all cs booked for the wednesday to the friday 22nd. apparently someone else is giving birth on the wednesday and will be taking ALL their staff with them to 'main theatre' what ever that is.

so my cs has been shifted. with 9 days to go. i am alternating between crying my eyes out and wanting to kill someone! i need to rearrange child care and family visits and god knows what else i haven't thought of.

i know there is always the possibility of lots of emergencies and your cs being bumped to the next day etc but really if this other lady is so high risk how come no-one knew about it till now? it can't be an emergency or they'd be doing it now. seems like worryingly bad planning to me.

how often does this happen?
who do i complain to? (not that it'd do any good)
WWYD?

i am SO angry and upset. this is not what you tell a heavily pregnant woman. EVER!

What exactly are you going to complain about? The fact that you have to re-arrange child care or that their is possibly a very high risk case needing the theatre that day?

You dont know the details and it is the hospitals duty to care for their patients not work around your child care.

Not all EMCS can be carried out now. This person might be high risk but can't deliver until a certain date due to babies gestation age if that makes sense.
As you don't know all the facts around the other birth I personally wouldn't complain myself.
I can understand you are annoyed and angry but sadly it is out of your control.

Hope you can rearrange everything for the later date.

I think you're being rather short sighted. The hospital will not have done this without a very good reason.

This may be a multiple birth such as triplets needing a large team and probably multiple NICU cots.

This may be a very high risk pregnancy in a lady with problems such as heart disease who may need an ITU bed/HDU bed after her section. This bed will be 'booked' in advance and may not be available on other dates.

This may be a lady who needs a section followed by a further large operation which they are doing afterwards which may be why they are going to main theatres.

The possibilities are endless..

To be frank, her clinical need is greater than yours, otherwise they wouldn't have moved you. You need to accept this and make alternative arrangements.

All the best with the upcoming delivery.

Someone else out there is in a very traumatic situation - can you imagine how dangerous a position she and her baby are in that she needs ALL the staff? And you are whinging about having to rearrange childcare. Get a grip.

PS just got to add that the majority of women only have a vague 5 week window that their baby will be born in, and manage to arrange childcare with sometimes only hours notice. I am sure you can sort it out. If you are having a CS you really ought to have childcare organised for the 22nd too, as you won't be leaping out of bed to look after anyone. Your family should sort themselves out - it is not for you to worry about them at this stage.

If they're going to main theatre for a non emergency section then I would hazzard an educated guess that its due to placental position. Something they could quite easily not have known about till now, (at least not known quite how serious) or it may be that her consultant has just made the decision about which day her section will be.

Why would you complain? You've been given plenty of notice, your section is still been done, just 2 days later. Would you rather htey get a med student in to do yours on the same day? This other poor woman has probably been told she's at a high risk of having a catastrophic haeamhorage.

God forbid you were having a vaginal birth with no idea when you were going into labour. I mean how do all the other thousands of women cope with sorting out childacre, etc.

Given that it is being moved to Good Friday, hopefully it shouldn't be too difficult to rearrange child care as hopefully most people won't be at work (although I realise some may). You have been given over a weeks notice - I suppose that ELCS are sometimes moved with much less notice.

I'm confused. Surely your overriding emotion was "thank G-d I'm not that woman and I only have childcare to worry about"?

op, you have my sympathy! as they have moved your elcs to Good Friday, a public holiday where only emergency surgery will be carried out, i strongly suspect they are hoping you will go into labour and they can do you as an emcs. no nhs hospital schedule surgery on public holidays!

reasons for that are purely budgetary and to keep the elcs rate down.

you need to get yourself on the phone and complain to the Head of Obstetrics at your hospiatl as this is completely unreasonable to put you in this position and not provide you with the care you need.

as for the rest of you posting, cant you see that the op is being messed around to suit budgets (elcs go to the budget of maternity wing whereas emcs go to the general budget thus fudging the figures in a favourable way for the nhs trust!)?

you should all be a little kinder and as for the ops reaction regarding childcare and arrangements, that is just an off the cuff reaction of a heavily pregnant hormonal woman.
can no one else here see what the real issue is?

I am not sure anyone has been unkind as such. I will say what I said earlier I understand she is unhappy and upset, but it is out of her control. I am not certain your theory is correct either, but I don't know enough about the NHS system personally to write a statement as fact without that information.

Ah, this happened to me as well, but it was changed back a few weeks before. I didn't need it in the end, as ds arrived on his own, three weeks early.

skandi1, you think they've moved her section by just 2 days in the hope of saving money? Sounds extremely a bit unlikely to me.

ah sorry misunderstood. thought they had moved section from 29th march to 20th april hence thinking it was unreasonable!

as its just 2 days then its very annoying but probably not a big worry.

and i take back what i said about nhs too!

only thing i cannot understand is rescheduling cs for a public holiday?

The NHS doesn't have bank holidays though. It's not like they can arrange all surgeries for office hours.

Where I work we do el lscs on bank holidays. Though not Xmas Day, Boxing Day or NY Day. Money comes out same budget for both em and el lscss.

My EMCS for breech presentation was moved from 31st March to 24th March to 22nd March - morning list, to 22nd March - afternoon list. 3 times it was moved, not much I could do about it, I'm sure they had good reasons and didn't do it just to mess me about! You just have to suck it up!

In the end I didn't need it anyway, on 22nd March whilst in the operating theatre, a last minute scan showed my baby had moved to head down, he arrived via normal delivery on 1st April.

I have 3 other children and had to rearrange my childcare 4 times (including going into spontaneous labour), it's just one of those things. I had no idea with my other 3 children when I would go into labour, so had to have family/friends on 'standby' for a few weeks.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I think you're being over sensitive.

Hope it all goes well for you though!

My ELCS was rescheduled because of staff shortages over Christmas.