No slots for c section

[Colourfulltrees]

I got a call to say there are no slots for my c section and they saying about induction? What would you do? I am 38 weeks Sunday. Mentally not coping very well.

Do.i just ring hospitals.up and ask.if they have available c section dates

Call your hospital and say you were told yesterday there were no dates available but you've been advised its medically indicated as necessary to have this baby soon and you want to know what they can do to ensure you get a C section. Will they be able to organise an ELCS or will they guarantee you in for an EMCS when labour starts? If they can't offer either ask if they can liaise with the other hospitals within your trust to find a date they can schedule you for surgery. Don't let them bin you off.

You can ask them which other hospitals in this trust offer maternity services, you can ask why they haven't referred you or offered this as an option. You can ask your midwife to contact these hospitals for you.

If this was any other operation, and your hospital didn't have capacity they would start contacting other hospitals to get you a bed and a slot in theatre and recovery.

It's unrealistic for them to expect you to be given, or be able to access any sort of trauma related therapy in any meaningful way between now and when your baby needs to be born. You can remind them that you are looking for the best maternal outcomes for you and have made an informed decision to have a C section and expect their understanding as its in their interests too to make sure you have the best maternal outcome. I don't think it will come to arguing this point really, and if it does I think you might need to be mindful that if there genuinely aren't the resources available to give you an ELCS, they can't wave a magic wand and make those resources appear, but they should 100% be doing everything in their power to exhaust the pathways that could lead to you having an ELCS and communicating to you as the patient what steps they have taken and what steps are yet to be taken.

You can ask to be referred to another hospital. You have the Right to Choose under the NHS. If you're happy to travel, ask them to send you elsewhere to somewhere that has a slot.

Tell your current hospital/ midwife/ obstetrician that you want to be referred to another hospital that can guarantee a C section.

Make it clear you are happy to travel and that you will not be having an induction.

I hate to break it to you, but that really isn't the case ATM. Trusts are having to massively tighten belts, which means cutting back on bank and agency shifts for elective work. And even if there were the staff, there's no beds for the patients to go into anyway.

As for other hospitals within the trust? Well there's only the one in my trust that can do C-sections. There's no obstetricians at the others. Other trusts could be an option, but I believe most trusts in our surrounding counties only have the one as well.

I hope they find capacity for you OP.

I saw my GP and A lovely midwife helped me and have my c section booked for Wednesday:) some people do actually help

So happy you got your date, good luck for Wednesday 😊

Thank you

And to you too hope all goes well for you

Thank you everyone this really helped

So we have this not infrequently.

Basically it is done on medical need first, highest risk to lowest risk, maternal request last.

if a high risk person does go into labour early then the maternal request gets bumped first. If they are so far into labour that it can’t wait for the elective threaten it goes to the emergency theatre and is re-triaged in the emergency list with the other emergencies for highest risk.

if we are so busy and you do make our elective list we won’t do other procedures like sterilisation due to time usually.

the emergency theatre is never used for electives due to needing them for emergencies and it removing surgeons/doctors from labour ward.

Ok thanks

That's brilliant news!

Good luck

Hope it all went well for you

Contact pals immediately: tomorrow morn . It is a human right to opt and have a caesarean. Do find it strange you haven't had a date ages
Ago. Ring the ward in the morn tell them you are contacting PALS re not being given a date and how that's affecting your mental health
Take control of this and be proactive

If you labour before hand you'll get an emergency slot instead. The rates of reported reduced movements sky rockets before Xmas so there's tons of semi electives to do unfortunately but you will get a slot x

I've worked on many LWs that do tons of cat3s and the rare cat4 in the emergency theatre with a lot of planning and ctg reviews first (we just ask obs what their back up plan is when the 2nd oncall team is 30m away

Recently? I’d have thought cqc would rip the hospital a new arsehole. They did us and that was ten years ago.

Lol. Yea it's certainly not rare. Probably every 3rd shift I'd do a cat3 via LW theatres as they'd run out of time on tbe elective list (I only do obs maybe 14d every 2m), cat 4s are v v rare but still done a few