"Poor care and communication"

We arrived at Ninewells hospital in July  as my wife was scheduled in for a C section. The staff carrying out the c section were excellent, professional and clearly very competent in their roles. However, after returning back to ward 38 south, it was clear that the nurses were unable to communicate with each other or us as the patient on several occasions.  

My wife was advised she may need a blood transfusion by one of the nurses who proceeded to take my blood to establish this. This nurse never came back to us with the results and my wife was discharged without knowing the result. On asking other staff they knew  of the result, they advised they’d go check this out, then never came back to us again.

This was even more frustrating whilst watching one patient get pandered to constantly due to her demands for attention. This patient we found extremely rude, kept others awake all night, including my wife, and even kicked up a fuss about wanting another room. When the staff organised this especially for her, she said she would prefer to stay where she was . I do not feel the staff should not have accepted her loud behaviour causing upset to others. Instead they were not professional at all in their communication with her.

On being told we were allowed to go home another nurse advised we could not due to our baby having a heart murmur. 2 other nurses came to advise we could leave. No one had communicated to other staff we were not allowed to leave. One nurse said it would be nice if other nurses communicated things to them, which seems to be a very common thread in Ninewells (poor communication between staff). 

Later in July we were readmitted to Ninewells as the community midwife was concerned that our baby had jaundice. We were told to go to ward 40. But upon arrival there was no signs to say ward 40. We had to ask directions, but still got lost. If it was not for a helpful nurse we would have never found it. 

Again we were admitted to ward 38, but on the north side. We were shown to a side room, which was nice and quiet. With this though it seems that we did not exist as no doctors were available to give us updates.  The next day again we were left. I had to ask about the doctors rounds to see when we would receive an update. 2 hrs later we still had not seen anyone. Again I asked about the doctor to be told they were very busy. 

Something drastically needs to change. If this is the best the NHS has to offer I would rather pay to go private. To give a rough estimate I would say 50% of the staff are good. But the rest need to go.

The problems we have witnessed have nothing to do with lack of staff or funding . Just people that in my view were not good at their job.