Text size

Theme

Language

"Terrible experience"

About: Royal Free Hospital / Maternity

(as the patient),

Terrible experience. My birthing plan was not even read by midwifes and staff members. They kept me for 25hrs total. They put my baby on monitoring since with every contraction the heartbeat was dropping and the doctor kept coming and saying oh yeah I can see it but everything else is in the norm so I wouldn't bother about it. Once they put the epidural things started moving but very slowly still.

The midwife was frantically looking for the heartbeat often since there were times we couldn't hear it but no one was saying anything to us. This kept going for hours until a team of 6/7 members of staff rushed in the delivery room with no word said and the ultrasound machine and the main doctor asked me why you look so scared. I said it was because no one is telling us anything we can tell something is wrong but we're kept in the dark, and now 7 of you are rushing and all they said was we need to get the baby out right away, you need to really give it your all and push. I was so scared but managed to give birth with the help of a forceps and an episiotomy. I lost 600ml of blood and they didn't stitch me properly.

Maybe half an hour later another midwife rushed illness that I haven't seen before and started yelling at the midwife that helped with the birthing asking her what am I still doing in the room and rushed me to get up which lead to me bleeding out all over my legs and floor.

Awful, terrible experience, terrible treatment by staff, no one bothered to ask me if I'm okay, no one bothered to read my birthing plan which said I want natural birth unless there's complications which suggest a c-section which was pretty much my case. Never again.... postnatal care was no better either. They didn't let us sleep or rest, breastfeeding consultants were extremely unhelpful.. once I've been cleared to go, they took 5hrs to sign my discharge papers. 

Do you have a similar story to tell? Tell your story & make a difference ››

Responses

Response from Patient Experience Officer, Barnet hospital patient experience team, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust last month
Submitted on 27/08/2025 at 14:09
Published on Care Opinion at 14:09


Dear reviewer, we're very sorry to read that you have had such a poor experience with the maternity team at the Royal Free, from labour and birth through to postnatal care. We have sent your comments to maternity management and if you would be happy to email us your details, management would like to speak to you about your experience further. If you're happy to do so, please could you email us your name and phone number at rf.bh-patientexperience@nhs.net and we will take it from there. In the meantime, our apologies again and we send you our best wishes, the Patient Experience team.

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful
Opinions
Next Response j
Previous Response k