Would you complain ?

[kirstenn123]

Hi ladies , as the title suggests I don't know whether to complain about my recent trip to hospital.
I'd previously posted that I was bleeding at 8 weeks & what should I do, some lovely users suggested I speak to my midwife & go from there.

I spoke to a midwife at my antenatal & she said no scan would be done due to covid & we needed to go to a&e. We were a little confused but we went anyways

At a&e , l spoke to a triage nurse , who asked me to do a urine sample & hand it to the doctor. I then had to go to get bloods done. The nurse who done my bloods took my urine sample & said she would drop it off for me.
I sat in the waiting area for around 2 hours before I was called. The doctor felt my stomach , asked me a few questions & popped out the room. She came back to say she'd tested the urine sample & said I was not pregnant & must of miscarried.
I sobbed my heart out saying I must be over & over again.
She said she was going to speak to a gynaecologist at another hospital
I was left in a room for 45 mins on my own , sobbing , unable to speak to my partner as the signal was rubbish. She came back in smiling & said she'd checked my blood & was "extremely pregnant" & that no one had told her my urine had sat out for approx. 2 hours
I cried so hard I thought my head was going to explode !!!

She confirmed I wasn't in danger , nor was my baby & I was free to go
I ran outside , sat on the floor & cried into my partner & told him everything.
He's so angry with the hospital , he's now wanting me to change to another local hospital & wants to officially complain
I tried telling him that the doctor apologised for her mistake & as long as I was pregnant it was okay but he is not budging.

Do you think I should submit a complaint or is it just a waste of time ?

Sorry for such a long post 😥

Bless you having to go through that on your own!!! I always think about whether I would want somebody else to go through the same thing, even if the doctor apologised, it shouldn't happen! So maybe rather than a letter of complaint, submit a letter of concern so they can look into what happened and review their procedures!

@SK2970 the doctor herself was so apologetic, I think she felt awful within herself for having to delivery that sort of news anyways

I've spoke to my own midwife & she's told me to take a few days off work to recover & she'd check in on me in a few days. She's also going to find out why I wasn't took in for a scan

You must have been so scared and upset, sorry you had to go through that. Bleeding can be a scary thing, it’s hard not to think the worst and not having your partner with you is necessary at the moment but makes things harder.

I think @SK2970 puts it very well. I would want a record made of it so that they can look into it. An angry letter (not at all suggesting that is what you would write), would not achieve anything but I think it is definitely worth raising and recording what you went through so that they can review their processes. Clearly what happened in their procedures was far from ideal and should be looked at to avoid it happening in future.

@IDK2020 I think that's wise. I'd hate for another lady to go through that
I'm so glad I insisted that she checked again as most people would of just went home upset

Hi, I'm new to the board and work in healthcare (not in a baby/pregnancy-related field). I can honestly say that if I were that doctor, I would welcome a letter of concern being put in about the experiences you had. These give us the opportunity to make changes to our own work and to the systems around us so that we can do better for our patients.

We want the best for all our patients and your experience sounds horrible. The doctor will have felt terrible for having to break such bad news and then felt terrible for realising the mistake.

If you choose to raise your concerns, you can explain that the doctor herself seemed sympathetic (if that was the case) and that you aren't blaming her personally, but that the systems in place around your visit led to a distressing experience for everyone. Perhaps something as simple as the urine sample being marked with the time it was taken could have helped, and that would be a relatively easy step to add in to existing systems if they don't do it already.