Community Services - Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust 2017-02-08 Person 1 5 0

I am horrified by the conditions at the women's and children's hospital. It has been one of the worst experiences of my life and actually made me re-think having a second child. I was naive to how bad an experience it would be to stay in this hospital, if I had known I would have paid privately to give birth elsewhere but I had no idea, the place is a shambles mainly due to lack of staff and facilities. , I always thought hospitals were supposed to keep you safe, but my stay here, actually caused me and my unborn son to get an infection, as due to the horrific staffing issue, and not enough beds the hospital knowingly put me at risk of infection, ignoring the risk of infection after the 24 hours of waters breaking. One midwife said as I was stuck at 4cm for so long and my body would no longer dilate I would be brought on into labour and that they would definitely bring me on as they have a duty of care before the 24 hours after waters breaking, which mine did. When a new midwife came on duty, I reminded her of this infection I had been warned of by previous midwife and that I did not want to get this infection, due to me not dilating all these hours and that the previous midwife had said they would take me to be brought on to prevent this, she simply said " we don't have to, there isn't enough beds". At one point they were finally going to take me to be brought on and took me out of the room in a wheelchair, someone then shouted " change of plan" and I was taken back to the previous room, as someone else had taken my place. They then brought in a community midwife who delivers baby's at home, and she was really nice and reassuring unlike the previous midwifes who didn't seem to be taking in the seriousness of me getting an infection. Myself and my mum were both crying to the midwifes as I didn't want this to happen and pleading for me to be brought on. For the first time the community midwife sorted it for me to be brought on, she said I would not dilate naturally having been stuck at 4cm for So long. By the time I was taken up for delivery to be brought on it was nearly 24 hours after my waters first broke. They were still trying to bring me on And so many hours later Me and the baby developed sign of infection, and 36 hours after waters first breaking I had a c - section at 9cm dilated, which I had begged for previously considering the circumstances! So they basically waited until we had developed an infection and until I was 9cm dilated and then decided to give me a ceserean. They said they would be taking me for a ceserean due to the 36!hours risk of infection,and both showing signs of infection, yet me and my mum had warned them of this all the way through and that I was stuck at 4cm the day previous, so how was I left to develop this infection. We were treated for chorioamnianitus, a prolonged labour infection. The bottom line is the hospital is understaffed, there is not enough rooms and it is the mothers and babies who are potentially going to end up suffering, if anyone comes with problems or complicated labour the hospital, as was my case, the hospital is simply unable to handle it. Even after the horrific labour, and the anxiety of knowing my child now had an infection. The conditions on rowan Ward only added to awful experience ! As my child had an increased count (blood tests on his infection) we had to stay for five days on rowan Ward. They explained Because of this I would now receive a non-shared room but yet this never happened. I chased this up a few times but they said there was none available. My room was ridiculously hot and stuffy, there was no toilet and shared with another couple and I stayed there every night till the last night. As my child kept me awake during the night and still being tired from my 36 hour labour , I wanted to catch up on a tiny bit of sleep in the daytime while he slept, but my shared room (room 1 ) was right next to reception desk and staff would be talking at reception, or in the office also outside my door. I was constantly told people would be coming to see me who never showed, so I would stay awake to meet them and they never bothered to turn up. For example the peadiatrician, I didn't meet her till the 4th January, 3 days after being told she was coming "soon". I kept asking when she would be coming and getting ignored. When the peadiatrician finally came on the 4th she looked barely able to stay awake and was actually apologising saying she wasn't with it this morning , when I asked simple questions she would say "sorry I can't answer that this morning I'm not with it, I deal with that many children and I don't know which this case is" and she told me to Ask mybmidwife. (But my midwifes had said ask peadiatrician ) . I Met her again on the 5th and she looked exhausted again and when I asked her if My son had had the full course of antibiotics she said she believes so. I said please can you check ? As she as she has a responsibility to know her job and her patients, not playing guessing games with my child's health. She looked like she could barely keep her eyes open, I had waited days being told the peadiatrician would be visiting me and when she did I was talking to someone struggling to stay awake and not knowing simple things about my child. So how are parents supposed to get information and where from ? If the midwife says ask peadiatrician and she says ask midwife, and it gets passed on for days. There was many examples of people saying they would come see me who never came. I had the same bed socks on from ceserean for days. I was sick of asking for simple things and being ignored. On my last night on rowan Ward I asked if they could atleast move me to the bed near the window so I couldn't hear all the noise as much from the hallway/reception desk (staff talking about personal life/tv shows etc really loud), the two members of staff on reception asked why I was in a shared room if I'd been in five days, and I said I was supposed to get a room to myself but it never happened and they said " there is room 10 available". I couldn't believe they hadn't bothered to come get me as soon as it became available. It took only five minutes to move me. So I had been struggling to sleep for nothing, through pain and noise. More staff needed, better facilities, better communication with patients from the staff. Staff need to LISTEN to patients and not pass them on to someone else, (fob them off and not give answers). Clare on rowan Ward (blonde) and Becky (can't remember her surname maybe It was Hughes but she worked quite a few night shifts running up to Saturday the 4th) are both a credit to the Ward. Clare was someone who actually listened to me and seemed to care that I was struggling and sleep deprived. I had told the other members of staff that I was only sleep deprived in the daytime due to noise etc and conditions in the shared room, people constantly in and out, no toilet and they didn't seem to care, whereas Clare did. Casey Jackson