I was supposed to give birth at the EGA last year and had all my ante natal care there. I had a pretty miserable experience there all the way through - my GP needed to send them seven letters before they actually didn't lose one and were able to give me my first appointment .
Always had to wait a long time to see somebody at the ante natal clinic, often for more than hour beyond my appointment time. And then the appointments were really rushed and didn't provide very much help of information. They also didn't bother to let me know that I was anaemic - it took 3 months of me complaining that I was really really tired and being told that 'it was just because I was pregnant' for somebody to ask how the iron tablets were working... and when I asked what iron tablets, they said the ones for your anaemia... what anaemia i asked. not remotely apologetic, just oh well, looks like it slipped through the system, you should have had a letter telling you to get iron tablets three months ago. grrr.
However their biggest failing was when I went for my 39 week appointment. the registrar wanted to give me a sweep (and there's me thinking that they were what you used to induce late babies) and despite having symptoms of pre-eclampsia he said it was nothing to worry about and to come back in a week. When I persisted he said I could have some blood tests but as appointment was running so late the blood technicians had gone home, he wouldn't do it and I had to go back the next day for blood tests.
Lucky for me I have an aunt at another london hospital that is a specialist in pre-eclampsia. when I rang her to find out if/when I should be worried with my symptoms she was horrified I had even been allowed to walk out of the hospital. If I'd had a partner with me maybe I would have been allowed to go home by taxi to get my suitcase and come straight back but that's about it. by the time I ended up speaking to her it was late the next evening - she took me straight down to her hospital and ran the tests herself. they came back positive and I was admitted there after midnight and stayed until induced a couple of days later.
must admit in hindsight worked out well I think - she knew the consultants at EAG very well and reported the registrar who had brushed me off so think he would have got quite a big rollicking . Hopefully he won't make that mistake again in a hurry but it is not like it was some rare 1-in-a million sort of thing - there's no excuse.
And the hospital I ended up at had en-suite bathrooms in the delivery rooms - from what I could see at ega there were shared ones that you had to go out of the room to. Birth was bad enough, but having to deal with walking around in public in labour / queueing / shared toilets / etc just doesn't bear thinking about.
On the other hand, one of the other people in my nct group was also there and had a fab experience, long appointments, saw the same person each time, good birth experience. Really did feel like we were talking about two completely different places when we compared notes afterwards so think positive and maybe you'll hit lucky!