I am very surprised not to see more comments on this site. Following what I can only describe as an extremely traumatic experience at Hull Women and CHildren's Hospital, I have spoken to a large number of women who've had negative experiences there. The unfortunate element of this is that other than having a home birth, there is no choice. My complaint has been put with PAL; an independent complaints body, but the actions taken seem to be minimal so BEWARE!
Firstly, I would like to say that the doctors that treated me and cared for me during my time at the Hospital were absolutely fantastic and were kind, caring and everything a Dr should be. The issues were with the postnatal care on the Maple/Rowan Wards. The majority of the midwives were also excellent and very caring.
My bad experience commenced on the 24th December 2011 at 11am. I was induced on the 24th with a pessary. After 24 hours, this had failed to work and I was given 2 further pessaries. Following this, my waters were broken but they did not break fully. I was then put on a syntocynon (sp) drip which made the pain unbearable and I had to have an epidural. The quantity of the artificial hormone was gradually increased but failed to establish labour. After 72 hours, I was 7 cm dilated and was asked to 'push.'
Baby was not going to come and a scalp monitor was placed on baby's head and blood tests taken from baby's scalp to see if he was distressed ? fortunately, he was not!
Because labour was still not progressing after 75 hours and I couldn't 'push' (I now know baby was not adequately positioned to make an appearance), I signed a consent form to either have an episiotomy and forceps to get him out or for a c-section.
I had to have a c-section in the end as baby?s head could not be grabbed with forceps. All of this was traumatic, but it was after this my BAD EXPERIENCE commenced.
There was one midwife who worked on the labour ward whose actions traumatised me and almost made the difference between me living and dying due to the time it took for her to believe that I was feeling ill! Saying this, other midwives were fantastic and very kind/professional.
Following my c-section I was sore, but mobilised as suggested by the midwives - no problems. I had problems getting my baby to ?latch on? in order to breastfeed him and felt that one particular midwife contributed to the fact that I have never established breastfeeding, despite my best efforts and perseverance. The manner in which the midwife tried to instigate feeding was traumatic to both me and my new baby - to summarise briefly: this involved her grabbing baby's head (whilst he was screaming hysterically) with one hand and my breast with another and forcing his head onto my breast on each occasion when I asked for her assistance.
The next day, I had very swollen legs (I couldn't even bend my knee because of the size of my legs) despite having no swelling throughout my pregnancy. This was put down to 'normal postnatal swelling,' normal - it was not!
I expressed to the midwife that I felt very poorly and she gave me some codeine which I said I did not want as it makes me feel sick but she told me to take it. I asked to take just one tablet and she was sarcastic stating that it wouldn?t do me any good and I had to take both tablets - I was promptly sick and mentioned to another midwife that I had been sick and thought it was because of the codeine.
Over the course of the next two days, I maintained that I was feeling poorly and was shivering violently, had a headache, swelling where my liver is etc. I was once again told by this midwife to mobilise or I would get a blood clot. I expressed concern that I felt too poorly to look after my baby. To my distress, this comment appeared in my notes as 'emotional and can't look after baby.' I was shivering so violently that I couldn?t hold a glass of water in one hand and a glass in the other and pour myself a glass of water without it missing the glass. The metal of the bed was rattling because I was shivering so violently.
The next day, on my next blood pressure/temperature observations, (many were missed or not taken as regularly as I feel they should have been despite me feeling ill) the midwife came to see me and stood at the end of my bed in an intimidating manner and told me off for complaining that she'd given me the codeine that had made me sick. I was obviously upset by her attitude (witnessed by my husband). She persisted in talking down/ranting at me for about 15 minutes then stormed off ? not taking my observations. I challenged the fact that she didn?t believe I was feeling as ill as I was and that she thought I was being lazy.
Later on, the midwife came back with an assistant and my obs/temperature were taken by the assistant and shared with the midwife; the midwife was determined to prove there was nothing wrong with me. My temperature read 39.4 and at this point, the midwife?s attitude changed as she realised I was not making my symptoms up due to laziness.
Turns out I had septicaemia and all of my veins collapsed leaving it nearly impossible to get a line in to give me IV antibiotics etc. If my illness had been discovered earlier through listening to me when I stated I was ill when I had first displayed the symptoms of a blood infection - (surely something to look out for in someone who has had major surgery) it is my opinion that the it the infection could've been prevented from becoming as serious.
Once I had requested my care to be taken over by another midwife and was moved to another area of the Ward, my care improved and the midwife who was working on that area was extremely kind, knowledgeable and efficient.
My actions will be to move house before having another child in order to avoid giving birth at Hull Women and Children?s Hospital.