ANY NORTH-WEST WOMEN, Do NOT have your babies at Wythenshawe Hospital.......

[LittleBeth53]

Oh Wythenshawe Hospital. Where to start? The website promises state of the art birthing suites, luxerious pools, have any of your family members come & go as they please, recover in a private room if you request. They promise all the same on the tour.

So I chose to have my first baby in Wythenshawe Hospital and for the rest of my life I will regret it.

I was put in a room with none of the things they promise, but an old bed with no pillows, no blanket & a canteen chair for my boyfriend to sit in.

I was rushed through for an emergency C-section ofter 3 hours of mild labour pains; nobody would actually specify what the emergency was!

I was guaranteed a private room. I was put in a 'poorly baby' room with 5 other women crammed in there. Each room was only meant to accomodate 3 women & their babies. Me & my baby were fine, my son was an angel throughout our stay but the babies in the room with us were in need of specialist care & neither me nor my son had any sleep in 72 hours for the combined force of 5 babies joint screaming.

As I had a section I needed a catheter (tube they put inside your urethra that your wee goes down,) it was wrongly placed twice & therefore the bed I was in was soiled twice.

The catheter was ripped out 3 different times by orderlies sent to change my bedding ONE HOUR after my surgery, when I couldnt walk.

Nobody came to administer to my pain relief the whole time I was there. I had to ask each & every time. I couldnt walk due to the numbing medicine from the section & each time I needed some help I was treated as a chore.

I needed help changing my maternity pads in the night due to the numb legs, I had to buzz 8 TIMES for somebody to come & help me.

Eventually I leaked, soaking my bed in blood. They sent an ORDERLY who spoke no english, NOT a midwife, to help clean me up & change my pads.

The orderly again ripped out my catheter & when she went to get a midwife to put it back in, the midwife wore a look of disgust, grimacing through putting it back in for me. Each time the tube had to be placed back in, it was agony.

I was only allowed 2 visitors other than my partner for two one hour periods throughout the whole day. There were no visitor toilets & my mother was refused entry into the patient toilets. They told her if she needed the toilet she had to spend 15 minutes of her visiting time walking to & from the visitors toilets in the entire opposite wing to the hospital.

When I think back to the birth of my first baby I dont remember the elation, the joy, the new baby smell, visitors bringing gifts (visitors were asked NOT to bring gifts.)

The memory I'll always carry with me is being held up by 2 midwives & my mother as I couldnt move my legs, naked & sobbing with enormous clots of blood & urine pouring down my legs while orderlies changed my bed for the 4th time due to bed leakages from poor care. All in my first day of recovery.

In the end I discharged my baby and myself and refused to wait for them to all clear me.

We're currently seeking legal action against this hospital for gross neglect.

Please do not go to Wythenshawe Hospital. I wouldnt wish my experience on anybody.

Much love. xxxx

Jeez. Bump. Great simpatías.

wow sounds terrible. I am so sorry for your experience, this is unacceptable.

bump..people should know!

Write an official complaint and perhaps tell the local press...?

have juts read this this is disgusting...I am so sorry for you....x I would deffinatly write to the local paper.

It is awfull what you have been through ! ... hopefully in time those memories will fade and you will just remember th birth of your beautiful child.

Oh dear that is just awful. I have had 4 c sections and have been treated with the utmost dignity and care each time. So I can really see here where this hospital failed you.

You MUST make a formal complaint. And ask them specifically why an emergency section was necessary. Get a second opinion from the notes if you aren't convinced. It's important for any subsequent pregnancies. Also talk to your community midwife who will hopefully support you.

That is just horrible for you. What an awful experience.

Oh, my love, that's terrible!

Thank you for being strong enough to tell us about it and warn people. I hope your case is successful.

Oh my gosh that is disgusting I am so sorry you went through that, definatley seek legal action to get justic for yourself and your son and for all the other ladies and babies at that hospital.

I live not too far from this hospital, and yours isn't the first horror story I've heard about giving birth there. So sorry you had such a dreadful time.

Mercifully, I was in Macclesfield hospital, which I heartily recommend, and can only imagine that your poor treatment delayed your recovery quite substantially. I hope you get a positive response to your complaints. X

I gave birth at Wythenshawe and had the opposite experience - it was fine, and better than my first birth at the Countess of Chester.

put all this in a complaint. Copy in the Head of Midwifery and Chief executive of the hospital. Make specific complaints that must be answered.

The only way to get things changed are to complain formally.

I agree that you should complain if you are unhappy.

However, you need to be measured in what you write. For example, you need to complain about the care you feel you did/didn't receive.

Some of the complaints you have listed will make your letter look weak. For example, complaining about the type of chair your boyfriend had to sit in. Complaining about relatives having to walk to find a visitors toilet. That's nothing to do with the care you received and won't help you be taken seriously.

Think about it - why should visitors be able to use patients' toilets? It's a female ward. Would you be happy going to the toilet when you've just had a baby if some filthy-looking bloke (or woman) had just walked out? I wouldn't be happy with that at all - patients require some degree of dignity/privacy.

Also, find out why the hospital limits the number of visitors/visiting time. You have already complained that you felt the conditions were overcrowded so you are going to look quite silly if you then complain that visitor numbers were restricted - I can guarantee there are people out there who would have 10 visitors if there were no limit and to be honest, when you've just had a baby, the last thing you want is a load of strangers hanging about the ward gawping at you.

I suspect visiting times are limited for similar reasons.

Write a letter - but be measured in it.

Of course. The issues aren't the toilets or the chairs. It was the treatment I recieved, or lack of.

I appreciate that midwives are struggling and most hospitals are under staffed, but that was my first birth. When the orderly ripped out my catheter in the middle of the night, the midwife asked her in front of me what happened and the orderly pointed at me and said I did it myself, not her!!! Then the midwife gingerly put the catheter back in with one finger and thumb with a disgusted grimace on her face.

Two orderlies barged my room 47 minutes after my surgery and proceeded to change my bedding, with me still in the bed! With a fresh 8 inch wound in my stomach and no movement in my lower body. Thats how my tube was ripped out the first time.

A canula festered in my hand for 3 days as everybody "forgot" to take it out for me. I had an infection in that hand that had to be treated with antibiotics.

It's like nobody understood that I couldn't move from the numbing medicine from the surgery, I was treated as a chore, I had to press the buzzer just to ask for dinner to be brought to me from the trolley as I couldn't walk like the other ladies could, it's like they didn't understand that I wasn't being lazy or needy, I couldn't walk. I lost count of how many times I had eyes rolled at me during my time there.

By the third day, there was one midwife in particular who I won't name, who ignored me completely, pretended she hadn't even seen me. She glanced at my mother once and quickly looked away and actually quickened her pace. At that I point I wlaked right up to that midwife and said I was discharging myself and if she wouldn't arrange the relevant paperwork then I was taking my baby and walking out. She didn't argue. An hour later I was in my own bed having had a warm shower, with my baby in my arms.

I'm glad some ladies have had a nice experience there, I sincerely hope every person who goes there gets the exact opposite treatment to what I had. I hope every lady remembers the births of their children with happiness.

That's a good idea writing to the local papers. I will DEFINITELY be doing this.

Thanks for listening to my story ladies.

It wasn't just visitors who couldn't use the toilets though. My birth partner was my mum, not my partner, he had to work and couldn't do it. She was with me for 12 hours a day and they wouldn't let her use the toilets, they made her walk 10 minutes outside to another building if she wanted to use the toilet, wash her hands or freshen up and then back again. She's a gorgeous 45 year old woman, not a hairy bloke! Lol! xxx

still not a patient though. (and small lol at not being able to walk, then marching up to the ignorant mw and discharging yourself )

unfortunately, there are a lot of us who've had some ropy birth/ post birth experiences in lots of places, it's very sad.

make sure you look after yourself and get over the shock before you make a decision on how to follow this up. x

The toilets aren't the issue, of course. I'm just going to focus on my concerns and distresses of my aftercare.

Well, I say march. More like hobbled pathetically with the help of my mother and rasped my scary words in a pathetic strained croak, stooped over like a little old lady. Hahaha! x

I'm really sorry you had such a bad experience. Sounds similar to a lot of what I went through 9 years ago in a different hospital, although I did need a C-Section. And what's with changing bedding an hour after the op?!? Never understood that. I don't think I have ever before or since met such a lot of unpleasant woman as the ones I met who worked in that ward.

It was so bad there that my sisters stayed with me for most of time. We were obviously a lot more bolshy than you and your mum.

Take care and I hope you can get over this quicker than I did with my hospital.

Good for you that you were bolshy! I spent the whole time in tears. The night of the non-english speaking orderly ripping out my tube, I cried so much that night my eyes swelled shut. I hadnt slept in over 30 hours by that point, including the whole time of labour and surgery.

The changing the bedding thing is ridiculous, I was wired to an IV in my left hand, a heart rate clip on my right, a tube between my legs and a fresh wound in my abdomen! I was literally wired down into the bed and they started rolling me around, naked and embarrased in front of a room full of other women, no curtain drawn. Shudder.

I would love more children but I'd rather give birth in a barn than in that hospital again! x

I'm sorry you went through this. One of my relatives had a lovely birth experience at Wythenshawe.

It sounds as if after an emergency section you'd have a hard job getting a birth anywhere other than a hospital so make sure that next time you are much more assertive.

If a section becomes necessary make sure you understand the reasons prior to signing the consent form.

Refuse to allow them to change your sheets until you are good and ready.

If necessary, demand a person higher up the chain. If someone is available they will come to you.

Unless you can be certified as sectionable then no one can enforce any form of medical intervention onto you. Obviously you'll be wanting to do the best thing for your baby but that doesn't mean not having the information you require.

The toilet issue and the visiting issue is fair enough and is quite common nationwide IME. The first is rightly down to infection control measures and dignity issues. The second is down to the fact that they have a responsibility to ensure that you are looked after and are not over tired.

Without wishing to demean your experience, sit, think and chill before doing anything. Once you're calm, you'll sound a lot more coherent.

Above all (and this from experience) please don't lose these precious first days in a haze of anger and regret. They pass soon enough without you frittering them away on such emotions.

buttonmoon78 - it's not possible to refuse anything in that state. Try having major abdominal surgery then be rolled around your bed shortly after! I don't think you have any idea how bad maternity services can be and my heart goes out to LittleBeth.

buttonmoon - apologies if you do indeed know how bad maternity services can be, I am assuming and that is stupid.

I'm so sorry to hear about your terrible experience! I for one would be wanting a clear reason as to why they gave you an emergency section- surely you should know the reason!? And the rest of the stuff you endured is terrible. YOu should definitely write a formal complaint.

I for one am very frustrated at the state of maternity services in the north west. What confuses me most is why Hope Hospital's top rated maternit unit is earmarked for closure this year. I wish the chief execs would step down from their throwns and vsiit each of the units so they could better understand what's going on at ground level and how their budget decisions affect women and babies!

Really sorry to hear about your experience. It is useful for us to read about such experiences.

Buttonmoon clearly lives on a different planet.

"Above all (and this from experience) please don't lose these precious first days in a haze of anger and regret. They pass soon enough without you frittering them away on such emotions." is rather patronising.

no, i think buttonmoon is echoing what i said earlier really. traumatic birth experiences are awful, and the op sounds as though she is still in shock. i think rather than being patronising, buttonmoon was trying to get the op to focus on the positives (a healthy baby) in a process of healing herself.

she can still make an official compliant once she has got over the shock (and will be better placed to do so). the priority is the op's immediate wellbeing.