"The midwives, support workers and..."

What I liked

The midwives, support workers and theatre staff were all fantastic and I do not have any issues with the care I received.

What could be improved

The way the Jessops wing is now organised is utterly crazy. Norfolk is now the one ward dedicated to c-section patients, with only 2 midwives on duty overnight this is simply negligent. On the 1st night after my section I was informed that 10 patients had delivered that day. Each of those patients were therefore bed-bound and unable to care for their newborns without assistance. 2 midwives is simply not enough staff to deal with such a patient load.

I was in relatively good shape and did resort to tending to my baby on my own - not wishing to place extra burden on the staff - which could have resulted in my causing myself injury - but when a newborn is screaming and both staff are tied up it is difficult to stay immobile.

Additionally I was placed in a 4 bed room which included a very young patient with learning difficulties whose baby screamed continuously. This patient was afforded very little attention from the staff (because they simply had too many other patients to tend to and not due to their fault). The poor girl spent most of the night talking to herself, ranting and raging and repeatedly saying that she didn't know what to do. Why couldn't this girl have a support worker/family member assigned to her for the night?? On a 'normal' ward another patient could have helped her........but not on a ward where all the other patients cannot get out of bed!

The staff at Jessops do a fantastic job but they are under far too much pressure, probably borne out of the PCT trying to maximise its 'profit'. The administrators of the hospital need to have a long hard think about how the wards are organised - the high dependency patients should either be distributed across the 4 available wards or the staff to patient ratio needs increasing on Norfolk ward. The 'old' method of allocating ward according to postcode seemed alot more sensible and presumably resulted in a more even distribution of c-section patients.

Anything else?

The temperature on the ward is unbearable....surely unnecessary as newborns do not need to be kept above 25 degrees.