Were you happy with the standard of care you received?

[inneedofsomeanswers]

Another namechanging regular..
I had my first miscarriage last week at 6wks.
Am dealing with the loss ok but am really struggling to come to terms with the care i received which has ranged from excellent to downright shocking at my local hospital.
Just wondered really how everyone else felt?

Hi
I went to the EPU after noticing brown spotting. The doc was absolutely awful - miserable and would not answer any of my questions or what to expect if I was MC'ing. I don't think she read my notes which would have told her that my baby passed away in April shortly after her birth. I really needed someone sensitive. I called my consulatant and told him that I did not want to deal with her again. He was surprised that she behaved like this. Anyway, went back on Monday and she was a different person. She had a letter from my cons and so I am guessing he told her what I thought.

I also went to my local gynae ward to get checked and they were brilliant and very thoughtful.

What was your experience?

this is quite a difficult one for me to answer. i have always found that individually, the nurses mw docs etc are very good. understanding, patient, caring.

they seem to have their hands tied by nhs guidelines/procedures.

when i had my 1st mc they managed to get my notes mixed up with someone else with a similar name to me. After beind admitted to the gynae ward due to heavy bleeding and needing help removing the 'product' i was discharged with appt for check up 2 wks later.

turned up for that appt to have scan and a very nice sonographer told me that unfortunately i was no longer pg! hardly suprising considering i had been there 2 wks before having a doctors hand remove my baby!

after my 3rd i was referred for tests and while waiting got pg for a 4th time. due to bleeding at 6+5wks had an early scan, while i was there the receptionist managed to cancel my cons appt! no one told me and i turned up on the agreed date and time and was told no such appt booked. lets just say i was not impressed.

sorry for rambling on! what i am getting to is that i cant really fault the physical care i have received its just the waiting around, appts side of things that really pee me off.

im vry sorry that you have been through this. do you mind me asking what the shocking part of your care was?

I was looked after very well and the compassion I was incredible, although it's early days and I don't think I've had a chance to really mull it over iykwim.
The one thing that was awful was the "walk of shame" from the scanning room which leads straight out into the very busy waiting room, acompanied by a very apologetic nurse. It wasn't their fault - the rooms they take women to after hearing bad news can be reached without going through the waiting room, but they were all in use so they took me elsewhere. The nurses were very apologetic and I think they found that element almost as hard as I did.

I've been treated very well both times... partly I think my experience wasn't too negative was because I already knew I was miscarrying, so I didn't have to deal with the shock as well as the inadequacies of the NHS.

I did have to sit in a waiting room alongside pregnant women waiting for their antenatal appointments, which seems to be a common complaint, and I also had to cancel scans that had been booked for me before I mc'd, which is another common complaint. It's not nice having to explain why you won't be needing that 12 week scan.

Overall though, the staff were lovely, kind, informative, supportive and really really wonderful. Can't say a bad word about them.

the compassion I was shown was incredible. Doh!

I received brilliant care through my ERPC - own room in completely separate part of the maternity hospital so no encounters with successful pregnancies and new babies.

2 midwives, one either side through the actual procedure to hold my hand, stroke my hair and generally be so loving and supportive, it was untrue. They dictated the pace of the procedure to the doctor and made sure I had adequate pain relief etc and when I needed just to sob, they were there.

Thanks so much for all the replies and am sorry to hear about everyones'losses
This was an unplanned preg for us (i'm already a mum of 3 from my previous marriage tho this would have been my DP's 1st)but nonetheless wanted.
Having had a couple of days of light spotting i was referred to the epu coordinator at my local(downgraded)hospital for a priority scan,in the few hours that i waited for her to call me the bleeding became heavier and i now know that i m/c'd during this time.
I was scanned later that day by a sonographer
who made me feel like an inconvenience,offered no explanations or asked any questions but a nurse told me when i left that i would be called the following day to discuss what would happen next.
This never happened and i was left to chase things up myself culminating with me being told to get myself to hospital asap as I was having a suspected ectopic.
We discovered here that the staff at the local hospital hadn't even transferred my notes across let alone notified them of my existence.
The staff there were brilliant on the whole and i was allowed to go home later that evening as long as i returned for further tests 48hours later,tho we were told of this by a very unsympathetic doctor who didn't even have the decency to pull a curtain round my bed preferring to share our news with the lady lying in the bed opposite who heard every word
We finally received confirmation on Monday that i had probably suffered a complete m/c and that I would receive a follow up call to discuss things,(again from the local EPU coordinator)as i type I'm still waiting!
I guess that just posting this has helped me alot,but I really don't feel able to move on in my own mind until I have found out as much as I can about what's happened and sadly I'm left here to find my answers online and thru the experiences of other MNers.