"General lack of empathy and care"

General lack of empathy and care due to not enough staff/busy staff. Support staff on E Ward, turning off the buzzer when they came to my bed, and walking away, saying they would be back soon; this was during the midwives hand over and several times during the night. 

When I was to get the catheter taken out, a midwife moved me from the bed to the seat and said they would be back soon to take it out. I sat there for three hours, then fainted, finally help came and got me back into bed to then rest. I personally don't think I should have been left there for 3 hours, it made me feel neglected, weak and caused me to feel cross and upset when I just wanted to enjoy precious time with my newborns. This concerned my husband who was there with me.

I couldn't reach my children in the incubator after my E C section that first night, so I needed help, it took one hour for someone to answer my buzzer to pass me baby 1. 

The E ward in the Royal Hospital was overstimulating at night, buzzers sounded all night long, and are very loud compared to other hospital wards. It was continuous, I left hospital with fuzzy/sore ears. I requested ear plugs after I fainted and tried to get some sleep through the noise and between feeding twins.  

I asked a midwife at 2am if I could have help feeding my twins for this one feed, unfortunately they said they were too busy. 

This was not a nice environment for new mothers or newborn babies. Not one midwife asked me how I was in the 5 days I was there, it was the breastfeeding Lead on day 3 asked me how I wanted to feed my babies and also had a few conversations about life, no one else showed any care towards me. One support staff on my last morning had a chat with me, it helped me to smile after a really challenging 5 days in hospital with no sleep. Midwives were just getting the essentials or high risk patents done and leaving everyone else until they were then in that situation.  

After c section, I wanted to BF and asked for help expressing colostrum for a second time, I was told I would just need to crack on with this myself, even while I was still in the recovery bay and very lethargic. After I was told this by the midwife in recovery, I felt really disheartened and it made me feel inferior as a new mum. I simply needed some help and encouragement, even to start off my harvesting or talk me through my moves as I was doing this for the first time and there really is a technique to hand expressing and collecting the colostrum.  On reflection, I think this could have been handled differently, I just assumed BF was encouraged by all, even if you had twins or not. 

A lady on my row, had her husband stay till 12:30pm, he left when he was asked to leave. I had my husband leaving at the end of visiting and I had premature twins! I felt this was so unfair as he could have stayed a bit and done another feed with me, to help me through a bit of the night. 

I was told at 7am I would probably be discharged that day and to pack up. We left at 7:50pm because it took that long for them to discharge twins, again, there has to be a faster way to do this. 

I am telling this story almost 10 months later as it worries me when I remember or think back. My newborn baby videos are ruined with the horrible buzzers and noise in the ward. I think it's a disgrace to have new mothers put into such an awful crazy ward, leaving them unsupported. I will never have another baby at the Royal Hospital again. What a huge mistake it was but we believed this to be the best for our twins when we chose it, I wish I could turn back time. 

I was sent home with a bag of medicine and syringes, I had no idea when to take the next or which tablet or how to inject myself. A midwife at home helped me organise a pain relief schedule as I was for sure taking too much to soon.

Positives, Breast Feeding lead was very helpful towards my situation. The physio was a lovey girl and really encouraged me and gave me some confidence. One student midwife was kind and spent some time with me while I did a first breast feed. Her manner was lovely and really positive, and she even talked to my babies.