Share review of Bassetlaw District General Hospital

Bassetlaw District General Hospital 2020-02-27 Person 3 5 0

Firstly I would like to say that on the DBH labour ward we couldn’t have asked for better midwives. Charlotte and trainee Emma were outstanding and by far the best midwives we have encountered, even if it was just for the short period of time, they took amazing care of me and took the time to explain everything fully, even in what was considered an urgent/spontaneous labour. However when it came to A2 ward, we were sadly let down, disappointed and frustrated at the lack of support, reassurance and general people skills of the midwives, specifically on our first day. We arrived on A2 at around 11am to be told by the midwife on their they are waiting for our baby’s blood results and if they’re negative we can go home. That was it, nothing else. No observations on mother or child - despite the pregnancy being classed as high risk and mother to have lost nearly a pint of blood during labour, plus iron issues and 2nd degree tearing issues during labour - no re assurance nothing. From 11am we waiting til 5:30pm until my partner asked about the results, to be told by a second midwife - who quite plainly was very rude - oh it was negative. She then said as it was a normal labour we can go home now. We said we didn’t want to as no checks had been done on mother or baby plus with our first/previous child we had had a traumatic time in hospital where we spent 10 days after complications arising on the 2nd day. Instead of asking or trying to understand this traumatic past experience, the midwife plainly said ‘well this one was a normal birth, so when you are ready to go home, come and find me’ .. she then just walked off. Thankfully we managed to persuade a midwife to let us stay a night despite all the beds being empty. Baring in mind now it had been 9 hours since birth and no observations had been done on mother and child, no observation on 2nd degree tearing, no blood test or follow up on mothers iron issue or the fact she lost a pint of blood and no reassurance from any midwife. It took Emma, a trainee midwife on the labour ward, to check in on us for us to say our grievances to. We didn’t speak up before this because the general feeling we got from the two midwives running the ward that day was that they wanted us to go home ASAP, they never once come and spoke to us, offered no pain relief or baby checks. Emma then took our grievances to the two midwives running A2 that day to which response on of the midwives came and, in a manner that was quite reluctant, checked our baby over and said she was ‘fine’ before walking off. Later on that evening we checked my online portal notes to find that an observation on mum, including blood pressure readings, was keyd in to be done at 1:30pm that day, even though those observations never happened. It was also keyd in that mother was experiencing no pain - when this was the total opposite, they hadn’t even been to bother to ask! - and made up a fake blood pressure reading! Thankfully Alison, senior midwife, was on shift the second day. Straight away she organised for blood tests to be done to check iron levels of mum. She had a doctor come and do all necessary baby checks, hearing tests and she even took the time to come and ask about our experience personally when she was running a ward. Fair enough before we were discharged the only thing that wasn’t done was a check on mother’s tearing and stitches - something mother was complaining that she was in a bit of pain with. However Alison had been left a lot of work by the midwifes the previous day who had simply forgot about us and told us that we should be going home and to find them when they’re ready. Therefore Alison did turn a horrific experience on A2 into a neutral one. I cannot commend Emma and Charlotte on labour ward and Alison from the A2 ward enough. However I would never wish for new mothers to have to go through what I did and be made to feel like they have to go home ASAP without any tests or observations or any reassurance and this therefore is the reason I am writing this. Thank you for my experience Charlotte, Emma and Alison and all the helpers who were nice from the cleaners to the morning breakfast ladies. It’s just a shame that some midwives who appear work shy, lie about doing important observations, and make people feel unwelcome let the rest of the team at DBH down.