Hospital severely short staffed- should I move?!

[CharT3317]

I am due to be induced with my third daughter on Sunday at Leighton hospital.
First two deliveries there were great a d stagf have always been amazing.

However they are now severely understaffed and I have not even been able to book in for post date sweep and aromatherapy because they have no midwives available.
Was finally booked in for 4pm today but they have just called to say they are 4 midwives down and can no longer do it.

I am now extremely concerned about having the induction there on Sunday with a severe shortage of midwives. I have heard horror stories from other local hospitals previously when this has been the case and a friend nearly lost his daughter due to it.

Should I change, can I change, or am I panicking unnecessarily?!

Advice please 🙏🏼🙏🏼

What is your reason for wanting induction? Are you set on having one?

If they’re too busy to do your induction, they’ll transfer you to another unit anyway.

But at this stage in pregnancy, not many trusts would agree to you transferring your care without good reason

it'll likely be the same in every other local hospital. The fact that they're withdrawing MWs from the frilly stuff like aromatherapy is probably so they can use them to staff the labour ward properly and keep the women imminently having their babies safe. If it turns out that they're really not able to do an induction in an appropriate timeframe then they will look at transferring, but this is usually a day-to-day decision as activity levels on a LW can change quite quickly.

There are good reasons for some inductions but if biall units stopped the policy of routine IOL at 41 weeks that would relieve a lot of pressure.

Hope things go well for you OP.

My hospital weren't staffed enough to perform my induction properly. The whole thing was a shambles and I ended up with an emergency c-section. If you can change to a better equipped hospital, I would.