Men staying overnight on postnatal wards

[quesadillas]

Hi,

I'm getting myself really worked up about what seems to be an increasing trend for men to be able to stay overnight on postnatal wards. Last time I gave birth, men weren't allowed to stay. But I'm pretty sure that my hospital now allows it. This really bothers me. I found the postnatal ward absolute hell last time, begged to leave as early as possible , even though I knew I wasn't ready, and I ended up being re admitted. It was just a horrendous experience. This time I'm pregnant with twins, and the hospital have said that although I'd be a priority for a private room,there's absolutely no guarantee and there's probably more chance I'll be on the ward. I simply cannot imagine having visitors there 24 hours a day when I'm trying to get my head round having twins and feeding twins, and after a c-section. The woman in the neighbouring bed last time had her partner there at visiting hours and he was a nightmare. Loud, demanding of the staff (for him, not her) and thoroughly unpleasant sounding. I admit this may be affecting my views.

Did you have men on the ward 24 hours a day when you gave birth? How was it? Am I being ridiculous? And am I actually within my rights to refuse to spend a night in a room with members of the opposite sex, given that if I was having my tonsils out, it wouldn't be allowed?

Getting myself too worked up, need to get a grip!

farfallarocks, I'm sure I've read stories on here about men stretched out in the beds while their partners tried to sleep on the chair.

Its not a choice though at the moment. I wouldn't have a choice at the hospital I delivered my son at if I went back there now. Partners are allowed to stay over night, no choice for me at all. The only option is to pay for a private room should one be available, although even that isn't ideal as it's not like you can lock the door. Not everyone can pay, or there may be no rooms available. So no choice for some women, whilst others have their preference indulged - are they also self centred?

If there are to be resources (and imo there shouldn't), then there should be a hefty charge for private rooms to cover all costs incurred - extra cleaning, water, furniture, food, bleach, staff time to do this, everything, because it's a hospital and not, y'know, a hotel, and if the room is needed for a patient under any circumstances, then the partner will have to go home.

If you are going to be fascist about the provision of care, then you should really be providing care on the basis of how much the parents pay in tax. If you insist that no matter how ill someone is, they should only be entitled the basic healthcare, instead of allocation of resources based on need, then maybe we need to allocate staff and resources according to bands with those who contribute most, entitled to greater care than those who choose not to contribute to society in the first place.

Is that where you want to go? Or is it better to assess need on a case by case basis, and allocate resources based on need?

After all, that is what is currently enshrined in law, and written into the NHS Constitution.

That happened to me farfalle
To be fair I was feeding in the chair and said to DH to have a quick nap. We got a massive bollocking!

I was kept in after the death of DC1 and the NHS brought in a bed for DP. By that point I think they realised they were on very tenuous grounds re. our care, and were probably trying to head off a complaint.

So no choice for some women, whilst others have their preference indulged - are they also self centred?
That exact same statement can be made of either side of this argument.

Yes! That's exactly my point! The current situation of partners being allowed to stay overnight is ignoring the privacy/dignity/safety of one set of women. The previous situation where partners were not allowed overnight is not what another set of women want.

The only way forward is to have individual rooms, or failing that, to adequately separate out a ward into two separate wards. One for partners to stay and one where they don't.

Having partners camp out on chairs in a women's ward is not a genius award winning solution. It's no solution at all.

Priorities for the NHS.

1. Enough staff for women to be properly supported during and after childbirth, not covering up the problem by suggesting that partners fill in for the absence of medically trained staff. (Or plastering over the cracks by suggesting that men are there thus ensuring a 2-tier system of care/lack of care develops... not enough staff on at nights to respond to medical needs? Instead of a triage system, how about deciding on the basis of whose partner is prepared to be pushiest? Great idea. Not!) This should be a high priority.

1. Where the child is sick, provision if at all possible for both parents to be able to stay if they want to. Nice in an ideal world if it doesn't divert funds from somewhere more important, but lower priority than 1.

1. Private rooms for all so those who want their partner there can have them... trails in a long long way back.

Called my hospital this morning just to clarify this point and it turns out that yes, partners are allowed to stay. Same rules as when I had ds (18 months ago) wrt private rooms, ie there are some and they are allocated down to need (medical no how much you need your dp). I'm due to give birth any time now and I'm now really worried and upset about this. I don't want to sleep in a shared ward with 3 random men a curtain away. Dp will probably not be able to stay with me as we have ds to think about. I'm worried that if it is due to lack of staff I will be getting the worst of both worlds: shit care and no dp.

Just hope you have a straightforward birth and that you can discharge yourself and your baby before you have to stay for very long.

And if you have the energy, complain about it before and after. I think the only way anything may change is by making it really clear that this situation isn't acceptable.

I don't care about men being allowed to stay overnight on a ward.

I do care about anyone other than the patient being allowed to stay overnight on a ward.

Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, best friends, older children - it's still another body in an already cramped, hot, crappy postnatal ward.

It was bad enough trying to get sleep with other mothers and babies around, let alone with 4-6 other people on the ward as well, constantly tripping over chairs and stumbling into the curtains.

And what about people who have support? Whose only relatives are caring for their other children, or who have no family or friends to support them? Brilliant. Leave them sitting there alone in their bay with anywhere up to a dozen other people around them all night. That's going to help enormously.

It's a ludicrous idea. I hate the "my husband is a lovely, quiet man so it's all fine" - as if everyone's husband, partner, mother, grandmother, friend is always going to be lovely a quiet. What happens if they are not? If they are still there at 3am swearing at people, watching their iPad with no headphones, causing trouble? Who is going to ask them to stop or throw them out? Not the HCPs, I bet. And I wouldn't blame them either.

There are problems with postnatal wards. Serious problems. I was there for 5 horrible nights and had to have a hysterical breakdown to even be put in the ward for women with babies in SCBU/NICU, even though I had a baby in NICU.

But allowing a family member or friend to stay overnight as well is a ludicrous solution to the problem.

Refuse due to religious reasons or mental health.

LurcioAgain Unfortunately that is not the way the legislation is written. Until people on both sides start suing the NHS for the quality of their care, and name specific midwives who made decisions, then nothing will change.

That suits me just fine, because I can look after myself. If however you cant look after yourself, you can't blame anyone else for that. At the point at which a decision is made on a ward, the person with the most information is more than likely to be the person who's interests are taken into account.

I found that keeping a journal of names, times, what I was told, and what I was given, tended to keep the neglect I had experienced in previous pregnancies to a minimum. When MWs are being recorded, even if its just in writing, they tend to be more careful about how they cat, what they say, and more diligent about your care. Lest they are complained about.

shit care and no dp
You appear to be saying you would like DP to be with you? But as he cant, then no-one's DP should be allowed to be with them.

I don't care about men being allowed to stay overnight on a ward.

I do care about anyone other than the patient being allowed to stay overnight on a ward.

Well, let's hope your child never has to go into hospital. I couldn't imagine how a child would feel being abandoned in hospital at night. It actually makes me feel sick.

Yes, Ellie, that was exactly what I mean

Ellie: "That suits me just fine, because I can look after myself. If however you cant look after yourself, you can't blame anyone else for that."

So what you're saying, Ellie, is that so long as you're okay and able to make notes or can have your husband there to advocate for you, screw the rest of us. Doesn't sound like a brilliant solution to an underfunded NHS to me, just sounds like a variant on "I'm alright Jack".

Normally I'm a very assertive person. But I had an ELCS. I spent the first 12 hours (night time) after birth out of my tree on pethidine. I couldn't have taken notes, recorded midwives names. But according to you, if something went wrong and I couldn't get redress by suing the asses off the NHS, this would have been my fault. And (by extrapolation) it would be the fault of women suffering PND who were not in a state to look out for number one, or the fault of women whose education wasn't up to fighting the system, or who were too naive to make contemporaneous notes.

As it happens, I was lucky enough to be in a fantastic hospital which was not overstretched.

I want that for all women, not just the lucky or pushy ones. You just want your husband there so you're alright. I personally think that's an extremely selfish attitude on your part.

"Well, let's hope your child never has to go into hospital. I couldn't imagine how a child would feel being abandoned in hospital at night. It actually makes me feel sick."

FFS, are you being deliberately obtuse? We're talking about the post-natal ward here, not the paediatric ward. Of course my hospital's paed ward allows parents to stay (I spent a couple of nights on a camp bed there). I'm bloody glad they didn't let partners stay on the post natal ward, though, while I was fighting with the sodding breast pump all hours of the day and night, tits hanging out of my nightie.

So what you're saying, Ellie, is that so long as you're okay and able to make notes or can have your husband there to advocate for you, screw the rest of us. Doesn't sound like a brilliant solution to an underfunded NHS to me, just sounds like a variant on "I'm alright Jack".

That is how the system works. The NHS is understaffed staffed by poorly trained staff. Those patients who recognise this and prepare beforehand, are the ones who are catered for. Those patients who still live in cloud cuckoo land and believe in the wonderful fluffy hospitals we dreamed about when we were children are in for a big wake up call. If you get the perfect recovery space you want, all well and good, but if you prepare to insist on having your care dealt with on your terms before hand, and you know what to say and what to do, things also tend to work out all well and good.

Given the choice between hoping and preparing, I'd rather prepare.

I want that for all women, not just the lucky or pushy ones.

So do I.

You just want your husband there so you're alright. I personally think that's an extremely selfish attitude on your part.

No. I don't want to bury any more fucking babies. Have you bothered reading the thread?

You appear to be saying you would like DP to be with you? But as he cant, then no-one's DP should be allowed to be with them.

I've said before that I think everyone would like their dp to be with them just not everyone elses. I still think that it's wrong and they shouldn't be allowed to stay over night. I think that having partners there shouldn't be allowed (and that includes mine).The reason I'm nervous is the implication that dp will need to be there as there won't be any other help.

My apologies Ellie - I had noticed the post where you mentioned having a baby in NICU, but had somehow missed your post about the fact that your baby had died. FWIW, condolences - I cannot imagine anything worse than losing a child.

I still think, however, that the solution is more trained medical staff, not partners on the ward.

FFS, are you being deliberately obtuse? We're talking about the post-natal ward here, not the paediatric ward.

You stated that under no circumstances should anyone be allowed to stay on a ward except the patient. I pointed out quite clearly that sick babies are kept on, and treated on, post natal wards. In some circumstances, which I have already acknowledged are wholly the result of under-resourced hospitals, those 'patients' need a parents, other than the mother, to be present to advocate. A baby cannot consent to its own treatment, and we are all very much aware that the NHS is not the best advocate for a child's treatment, and there are many conditions post-natally where the mother cannot give 'informed consent'.

The blanket statement of 'all relatives except the mothers should GTF' is just as churlish as pointing out your apparent preference for abandoning your child.

I am pretty sure that the links to the RCM/NCT/hospital pages talked about this policy being evidenced based, so I don't think you can accuse someone of being 'selfish' if they take up the offer to let a partner stay, when there is evidence it leads to better outcomes for the baby.

I suppose the balancing act is between the benefit for the baby/parents vs the detrimental effect on the mothers who object to it, but that isn't going to be evident until the policy has been in place for a while. Until then, we only seem to have evidence of positives, which is going to make it a lot harder to have any sort of campaign to reverse the trend of letting dads stay

LurcioAgain Sorry. I am normally quite composed and precise about my posts, even when I am being... maybe to aggressive in my text. I let a little anger in, and I do not like to express personal emotions in what should be a structured and logical debate.

We all know what the issue is... Not enough competent staff. Not enough money. Not enough space.

I have said that I do recognise that my experience of the NHS is different to most, and that the NHS should not be taking a course of action that encompasses all. They should be doing what is in the best interests of most women, and then making separate provision for some. Based on need and not on ability to pay.

I'm going to leave it here. I have no more to contribute, and regardless of the wants or needs of patients, the NHS is in decline. I only see things getting worse for those unable to stand up for themselves.

If you want your partner there, do your homework, read the research, read the law, and stand up for yourself.

If you want privacy and dignity on your own, do your homework, read the law, and stand up for yourself.

All any of us want is happy healthy children.