"Lack of nutrition"

I am writing to you following my 5-week old son and my wife’s one-night stay at the Castle Mey Ward at the Royal Hospital for Children in Edinburgh.

Unfortunately, this was not a pleasant experience. There was a number of issues that we came across, but the biggest and most shocking was that my wife who is exclusively breast feeding was not offered any hot meal at lunch time or tea time.

Our journey started in A&E at RHSC in Edinburgh. We had to go there as our son had temperature and this can be very dangerous for babies. We cannot praise the A&E staff enough. All the nurses and doctors were extremely nice. I felt like our son and my breastfeeding wife was treated as a one unit.  This was a great example of holistic care.

Our son got moved to the Castle Mey Ward and placed in a side room  with my wife.  She was then provided with water.

However, no other welcome pack information whether verbal/written has been provided at the time.

I only know about this as my other son was admitted to the same ward and at the time we were given a written welcome pack.

As you can imagine my wife was tired and alone with the baby. No food was offered for my wife upon arrival to the ward. Please keep in mind that this is a breast feeding mum who gave birth 5 weeks ago. This was a very traumatic  experience as my wife had a major haemorrhage after the labour and required stay in high dependency unit. She is still on iron tablets.

In the morning, my wife got breakfast – toast. Nutrition for breastfeeding mums and unwell babies is crucial and this goes without me having to elaborate on this any further.

Due to the ward policy, that under 5 years old are not allowed to visit I was unable to come to hospital the next day. 

Please note, at this stage we are talking about tired, malnourished breastfeeding mum on iron tablets who is asked to walk alone to the canteen (which is miles away) to get a hot meal. 

I do believe mum and baby should be treated as a one unit. My suggestion would be to:

-when completing fluid/food charts for babies to include mum’s wellbeing

Five weeks postpartum women are very vulnerable due to hormone imbalance. Not to mention that this addition stress can strongly contribute to potential development of postnatal depression.

It got to lunch time. I called my wife to ask how is the baby and what did you get for lunch? Then I was told that breastfeeding mums/parent/carer who stays with unwell baby in hospital is not entitled to any lunch/tea.

I felt helpless as I could not just go in. So I asked my wife to ask the staff for a sandwich or some kind of snack. The only option was toast. Not exactly the most nutritious.

It got to tea time and still no food, luckily I left a few breakfast bars for my wife the night before.

At this stage, I was very frustrated. I decided to call the ward and speak to the charge nurse. I introduced myself and explained the situation that my wife who is alone in a side room has had no food for the whole day. Charge nurse said to me that parents/carers do not get fed as they are not patients. But they can go and get food themselves, and then claim £8.50 per day when they get home. I challenged this by asking how can you expect a breast feeding mum to leave the baby and go the the canteen, planning to get there for opening hours. I also said, babies on solid food get fed but how come that under 6 months do not...the only way for them to get nutrition is if you feed the mum who can then pass that onto a baby. 

Whether breastfeeding or not, parent/carer who stays in hospital with a unwell baby/child should be offered a meal. The £8.50 option to claim for your food while you have been to hospital does not help. For £8.50 I believe a lunch and tea can be offered on the ward.

What if someone does not have the money on that day? What if for some reason or another there is nobody who can visit? As it happened in our case: due to ward policy under 5 year old cannot visit, hence I had to stay at home.

What about the NHS Lothian core values: care and compassion? Clearly, I feel current practice on the wards at the RHSC lacks this. If this is done for the saving purposes, it appears as the worst possible option has been chosen. How it is that wards cannot provide the most fundamental aspect of care being - nutrition?

Moreover, there appears to be lots of inequalities in NHS Scotland. I called other sick kids hospitals and they all feed parent/carers who stay with children in hospital.

The main message I would like to get across here is that whether breastfeeding or not, parent/carer should be offered food.

My wife’s (family) experience cannot be changed, but I hope no other family/carer should go through this.