"Poor communication and attitude"

I want to preface this with a glowing endorsement of the Birth Centre where my partner gave birth to our child. That place was fantastic through and through, the care was considered, consistent and always appreciated.

The post-natal ward however, was a complete shambles, a mess, a fault filled slapdash of a ward, and to put it in no uncertain terms: a worrisome prospect should we ever have another child.

Our baby was born in the evening and had to be monitored on the hour every hour for six hours, which was completed before I arrived the following day for their visiting hours. (Which by the way I imagine are in place to ensure patient safety, ease of access for emergency staff, or something of the like but seeing as no one informed me why I couldn't stay with my partner the first night she was with our son after a lengthy and at some times a horrible labour, I had to imagine the reason myself. It would take fifteen seconds to explain that.

The following day from my arrival was  full of mis-timed arrivals, lengthy absences of any useful staff for our baby's examinations, and inpatient staff all around. I'll give my dues to the one midwife who after thirteen hours of us being there finally managed to wrangle a paediatrician to perform our baby's basic checks.

Staff seemed shocked when I asked how I gather water for my partner as if I were commanding them to refill it for me, the water jugs themselves hold four cups of water for a woman who is in need of care and breastfeeding! ? Whilst someone randomly pops in to refill throughout the day (if left to this method alone my partner may have recieved eight small cups of water throughout the entire day).

We were discharged a full thirteen hours after my arrival and twenty-one hours after her initial transfer there. And in the end we only recieved a five minute talk from two midwives, a few checks on my partner and a rushed, interrupted examination of my newborn. Who knows what happened to the person performing the hearing examination? Turned up once, couldn't perform the examination on account of a newborn wriggling, never heard from until we were being spoken to by probably the kindest person on the ward. decided to "come back in five minutes", and we were discharged with the hearing test in the end anyway. I wasn't informed whether it was mandatory, my partner was physically and emotionally shot by the whole experience of giving birth and no one mentioned anything on our dishcharge. Which by the way was given at the door to the ward, no one seemed to check whether we actually placed our newborn in a car, or walked home with him in the car seat. We were under your care! (Not so much me, but having no children previously I could not be considered a bastion of information regarding the appropriate procedures, could I?).

A simple sign saying "here's where you fill up water jugs", a piece of paper handed to a patient saying "here's what you'll be having done before you leave", and maybe, just maybe a little thought put into the way staff talk to people would make all these disappear. It really, really is that simple. I appreciate the tiredness, and how busy these people are, but I find hard to believe that these requests would be impossible to administer. I hope this was a bad day and we got lost in the system and no one else experiences this level of care.

Never thought I'd be bad-mouthing and complaining about a post-natal care ward, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth but surely this should not happen again.