I’m so glad I’m finished having kids. This story of maternity wards in the UK, written by a former NHS midwife, is just so sad. And if ObamaCare passes this will be coming soon to a hospital near you.
Clutching her husband’s hand and with agony and exhaustion etched on her face, a young woman struggled into a room in the maternity unit where I worked.
She was in the early stages of labour with her first baby, she was terrified, in excruciating pain and desperate for any crumb of support.
Helpless beside her, her overnight bag in his hand, her poor husband looked equally traumatised.
My heart went out to them. But I knew there was little I could do. With five other pregnant women to care for at the same time, all with hugely different and complex problems, I was rushed off my feet and didn’t have the time to look after her properly, to allay her fears or to hear about how she wanted the birth to unfold.
I longed to sit with this poor young woman, calm her and remind her gently to breathe deeply through each contraction.
Just half an hour of my time could have made all the difference. Instead, I put on my cheeriest smile and followed hospital procedure. ‘Would you like a painkiller?’ I asked.
Ten hours later, after she had been drugged to the eyeballs to dull the pain, I heard she’d given birth.
Her baby was healthy, but I knew I’d let her down.
As I watched her being wheeled into the ward, I felt eaten up with guilt. She’d effectively been ignored from the moment she turned up until the moment she gave birth.
Plonked on an antenatal ward until her time came, with no one to reassure her during what was most likely the most terrifying moment of her life.
No woman should have to give birth in these conditions - let alone in a modern hospital with professional staff at hand.
Welcome to the modern NHS maternity ward. A world of shoddy practice, poor hygiene standards and a shocking disregard for patients’ individual needs.
When I read about newly qualified midwife Theresa Naish, who hanged herself in January after a premature baby died on her shift, I couldn’t help wondering if she, too, was a victim of the over-worked and under-resourced labour wards I have experienced.
Her father Thomas told the inquest into her death: ‘Like all NHS staff, she was over-worked, doing too many hours in a department that was understaffed.’
Although the child had little chance of survival, poor Theresa spent weeks torturing herself that she was to blame, before killing herself.
I don’t want to alarm people for, of course, the vast majority of babies are born healthy and safe, but I think it’s time we admit what is happening in our hospitals.
Driven by targets and mired in red tape, our NHS maternity wards are becoming baby-producing factories where mothers’ needs come very low on the agenda.
The quicker midwives turn out babies, the more successful everyone tells us that we are. We might as well be producing sausages. It’s utter madness.
I started working as a midwife in Basildon in 1995. I left to work as an independent midwife in January last year ecause I simply could not bear to let any more women down. Read more
Anyone who believes that somehow American politicians will be able to “design” a better health care “system” than the British politicians is delusional. The reason America is so great isn’t that we have better politicians, it’s that we have a Constitution which limits the power of politicians. Now that the political class has decided to simply disregard our founding documents, expect to hear stories such as this one from hospitals here in the US.
Note the line “A world of shoddy practice, poor hygiene standards and a shocking disregard for patients’ individual needs.” Under socialism the needs of the individual are ignored for the “greater good.” This is what you get. Collectivism at its worst.
You know how you keep hearing that the soft socialism of Britain is so great? That National Health is wonnnnnnderful, it’s all freeeeee….. my friend who lives in England and had a heart attack and then waited A YEAR for a stent to be implanted just sent me an email bemoaning the fact that his wife is being laid off at her company (he has never returned to work–all that waiting further damaged his heart). His big, looming concern? They’ll lose their private medical insurance and have to use the National Health. You would be proud. I did not say it….they will defend their system, but when it comes time for THEM to get medical care, Britains prefer the private options.
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I have heard stories such as these about the NHS. It’s sickening and sad. Also, we have traveled quite often to the UK and continental Europe and have found that its citizens DO in fact defend the NHS but yet when I watch British Sitcoms from time to time they run programmes poking fun at the NHS vs. private hospitals….. Needless to say the private hospitals to them are looked at as being HEAVEN and the NHS is looked at as a joke. Yep, Obamacare will mess up our already nice healthcare system – yes we have our flaws but it’s funny that foreigners seem to come here to get good care – they don’t stay home to get it. Obama will “fix” everything….
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