"Disruptive visitors"

Last week we were discharged following a stay of 5 days due to our newborn and mum requiring some extra care after birth.

I would like to begin by saying that the staff throughout our experience, from the midwife unit, theatre, recovery and summerfield ward were fantastic. The care they showed not only to my partner and son, but also to myself was exemplary. The team was at our beck and call 24/7 guiding and supporting us through what I’d describe as quite an emotional rollercoaster due to our natural birth turning into an emergency section, followed by a short visit to neo natal due to an infection.

Sadly I don’t write with all positive things. The end of our stay resulted in us becoming very disturbed due to another family that arrived onto the ward. Upon arrival they showed no consideration towards anyone within the ward. Constant excessive noise of mobile phones and phone conversations, business discussions, which all took place on arrival whilst the ladies already present were being quiet to respect each others space. This is all minor in reality, however when I begin to question the safety of my new family, I feel is when it's gone too far.

I left early in the evening so that we could all have an early night in the hope of being discharged the following day. A few hours later, my partner let me know that there was a visitor who was refusing to leave. It was another hour and after 11pm when my partner finally confirmed they had left after wasting multiple staff members time. I feel for the people who had delayed care.

After a very unsettled sleep I arrived early to take my new family home. I was met with an exhausted partner due to having disturbed sleep from phones going off throughout the night. The visitor from the previous night arrived not long after me and was very vocal and began to challenge staff members. I recall a member of staff leaving their bed space very distressed and upset from the manner of which they were spoken to. This was all within 5-10 minutes of this person arriving.

The day progressed with this person asking to speak to every staff member they could think of, dangling the threat of a complaints. I believe this created a very hostile environment.

The upsetting thing for me is seeing the wasted resources on an already stretched service. The amount of staff members that attended to this to try to bring closure to any concerns was surreal. The team bent over backwards for that one family and that cannot be taken from them. I have no idea how everyone managed to conduct themself in such a dignified manner while being spoken to as they were.

The reason for getting in touch is to offer some sort of support towards the team. I took the view that they feel they cannot call for support to deal with visitors who are causing disturbance to the patients for fear of the repercussions that might follow. No matter what profession someone chooses to work in, they should never fear management not having their back when dealing with a difficult situation.

Instead it seemed they were left to tip toe around the situation and waste more members of staffs time to the level of doctors and consultants. I don’t think it would be unfair to be asked to leave, told to leave and then removed but that’s wholly my view.

I cannot disregard any visitor's requirements to speak with extra staff as I don’t know the reasons as to which it was required, but the delay to our discharge was most definitely caused because of this situation. The midwife was very apologetic about it.

The main thing is we still got away, just a couple hours later than initially thought. We are more than grateful for what the staff has done to help us and for the care provided. I’d be happy to discuss this experience further if this would be at all helpful. Again, thanks to all who cared for us. Keep up the great work.