Hi, just wanting to vent really and warn any others who might be trying to decide where to give birth. Just had a bad experience at the Lindo Wing. DC is fine and healthy which is of course the most important thing so I know that these are are first world problems!!! Just wanting to get it off my chest and help others who might be trying to decide.
So for close to £20k, First of all I didn't get to the room until 8pm at night as the 'room wasn't ready" and it seems they took over 4 hours to get it ready. So I was stuck in the delivery room alone for hours and hours after birth until 8pm at night.
Then when I did get the room, the TV didn’t work at all. Hardly the 'deluxe' package we were paying for.
One MW during delivery was wonderful, but after the delivery barely saw a nurse or a MW, it was all really grumpy, sullen agency care workers, shift workers and ‘healthcare assistants’. They took variously 2-4 hours to do anything - get water, get medicine. It took an extra 4 hours to take out my catheter as the lady ‘forgot’. They were very quick with one thing though, when they needed some extra forms filled out for payment, they miraculously were there straight away! All night long the buzzer was going off (the buzzer you call for help) and there was never enough people to help, sometimes the buzzer would be going for 20 mins, waking everyone else up too.A few times it took an hour for someone to come to help you.
On booking we were promised a lactation consultant and someone to help establish breastfeeding. Turns out no such person exists! The random assistants and agency workers gave few bits of advice but nobody who actually knew what they were doing. Really disappointing.
My bed was a really really old one and the controls for it nowhere near reachable so every time I needed to shift position or move the bed i had to call the button to get help to move the bed - they would often take up to 30 mins to come and help. And of course I didn't want to call them to help with such a minor thing but I had to as I had an EMCS so I wasn’t very mobile, couldn’t reach the water bottle or pour the water myself and everytime the catering staff came in they would leave the tray out of reach so i would have to call someone to get whatever it was within my grasp or pour some water which they did grumpily. Some of the staff were lovely but the majority grumpy and overworked.
The room had peeling wallpaper, shoddy curtains that wouldn’t close, again, first world problems again but not what you expect for £20k package.The fruit plate was completely unripe and tasted either sour or of nothing.The food was barely edible.
The final straw was when it came to check out and they told me I had to be gone by midday or they would charge by the hour for every hour over .Despite not having gotten into the room at 8pm when I 'checked in'. So we had to pay for 3 full days/nights even though was only in the room for 2.5 days/nights. You really felt like you were in a factory.
Hope this helps someone make the right choice or nudges the Lindo Wing to sort themselves out and give people what they are paying for!