Hi just want to share my story with those that are debating going private at the Uclh. Firstly you cannot book to give birth here naturally it is just for patience that are having c-sections. My reasons for going private were to meet the consultant and to be able to discuss what was going to happen with the op & to secure the date without any messing around.
I did not need to keep visiting my consultant in Harley street for every scan and blood test, I did all that at my local hospital so you don’t need to pay each time you have all these standard procedures done.
All in all I paid around £12,000 - cost of stay & consultant included.
I gave birth mid September 2017 so very recent. My experience with my consultant was amazing! I healed very quickly! I Was up after 6 hours, had a shower and was able to move more than my first c-sec which was great.
But I had to write this review to let women know that the treatment I got from the hospital was absolutely appalling! The initial room they put me in was an absolute joke, there are only 2 decent rooms (the ones in the picture on there site) everyone pays the same amount of money but you don’t all stay at a similar standard of room!
Unfortunately I had to argue to be moved to a room that I was made to believe was what I was getting when I paid my deposit.
The nurses were rude to my husband and I , it was like we were a burden to them and I felt at the time that I was being treated like I was being difficult when asking for a glass of water. Aside from all this the worst was the fact that they had a problem with the air conditioning in the hospital as it never switched off day and night!
I had my newborn in a freezing cold room, so I didn’t sleep the whole time I was there in order to keep my newborn warm, I was holding her all the time and was too paranoid to sleep, so imagine I had no recovery rest period. We was meant to be there for 3 nights which we cut short to 2 and couldn’t get out of there fast enough! My husband got the flu due to the air con, we had asked to be moved to the maternity ward but it was full. After my husband coming and going to reception trying to see what they can do about our freezing cold room,finally a nurse on the night shift brought us a heater so thankgod for the one nurse that actually cared enough to bring us a heater!
Due to the cold room I struggled to breast feed as I was very reluctant to do skin to skin with my newborn, I didn’t even realise it at the time as I must have been exhausted from it all and was just in tears as to why I was failing to bf! Funny how after one night’s rest at home and I had baby back on boob(I say back on as I did bf in the recovery room and she latched on great, it all changed a couple of hours after being back in our “private freezer”
If we had felt some kind of compassion and care from the staff I wouldn’t be writing this message for others to see as I would put it down to bad luck with the air con but no one seemed bothered. My husband even over heard the nurses talking about us in the hallway. I cannot stress enough how unprofessional and cold the staff were towards us. There were a few really nice nurses that were usually on the night shift but the majority were terrible. I nearly forgot to mention that they weren’t great on keeping track of the times that I was taking my pain killers so if you do go there please keep that in mind that you cannot rely on them to have written it all down.
After complaining about all of the above, the manager of the private ward fitzovria ward come to visit our room and saw/felt it all for herself and asked me what I would like as compensation, ideally I would have liked a good experience and to have been able to have breastfed my child in a warm room! I said the least they could do was compensate us for the room, which is exactly what they did. We received £2,500 which would have been for 3 nights stay.. they did what I consider the very least! I now know that we are not the only ones who have had a bad experience with the fitzovria suite and I’m really not surprised. We had our first child at the knutsford private maternity suite at Watford general hospital and the experience we had there was amazing in comparison.
The only thing I’m grateful for through this experience is that my surgery and my consultant was fantastic which is why I didn’t push to complain further as I was very happy with him and he’s team.
I really hope this helps someone with they’re decision, I wish Ithere was a recent review about them when I was shopping around for a private maternity ward, as I could have avoided such a horrible experience. :(