"My sons experience in Dr Grays Hospital"

My story is actually a complaint that spans over 4 days, it’ll be split into sections and I’d appreciate it if someone does get in touch with me to address this. 

Wednesday  6.30-7pm

I look up at the baby monitor and my 5 month old son is sleeping. I notice his chest is moving up and down very rapid and he’s sucking in his tummy a lot. I go upstairs to check on him and you can hear him struggling with his breathing. I go downstairs to get my husband to look at the monitor to confirm what I see, and he does. 

I phone 111. I explain on the phone I’m worried about my son's breathing and that he seems to be working very hard. After answering questions and being put on hold to speak to a nurse, the call operator tells me their isn’t a free nurse so they’ll speak to the charge nurse on the floor. The call handler comes back on the phone and tells me Dr Grays Hospital will phone me. 

After waiting 20 minutes, a nurse calls me, after I’ve explained what’s happened and that my son’s still struggling to breathe and it’s been 5 hours since his last feed (he barely had any of his previous feed) the nurse tried to connect a zoom type call. An appointment over video so we didn’t need to go into hospital. After going through at least 5-6 different web links, downloading apps etc (this takes about 30 minutes) The nurse ‘jokes’ “It’s a good thing this isn’t an emergency”... I’m sorry but my son struggling to breathe is an emergency. That was a disgusting and disgraceful comment to make and highly unprofessional. Now I’m starting to regret calling 111 and following the ‘experts’. The nurse now tells us to go to The Oaks. I’ve never heard of this place and don’t understand why we aren’t being sent to A&E. The nurse gives us rough directions and says a security guard will meet us when we arrive.

9PM

After driving trying to find The Oaks (which isn’t signposted at all) we eventually find it and wait 5 minutes in the car before the security guard walks slowly to meet us. My husband gets out the car to start putting the pram together and he’s told to get back in the car rather aggressively and says they will be back. After waiting a further 7 minutes the security guard again slowly walks to us. This whole time our son is still struggling to breathe. Nobody has any sense of urgency. I then put the pram together and am walked down to this room. When I walk in with my son, I’m appalled. The room looks filthy, equipment isn’t set up (and they were expecting us), the bed I had to put my son on was dirty and didn’t even have paper lay on it. The nurse we had spoke to on the phone was present and never washed their hands. They also called a colleague through to find batteries and then said colleague stays in the room- my husband can’t be there but a total stranger can who doesn’t wash their hands either, doesn’t remotely try to social distance or even introduce themselves. Despite all this they can see my son still struggling to breathe to the nurse tells us to get to A&E at Dr Grays and that they will phone ahead so they know we’re coming. The nurse then tells me my husband will be allowed in with me. I must also point out this nurse ignored every one of my questions I asked him.

10PM

3 hours have now passed since I phoned 111. We arrive at Dr Grays A&E and they have no clue about us. Also my husband isn’t allowed in with me. I get up to ward 2 (the children’s ward) and again, nobody knows about my son. The nurse hasn’t told anyone. Ward 2 also asks why on earth we went to The Oaks as we should have come straight to A&E. the first doctor that saw my son was very rude. They said even though our son was visibly struggling to breathe the dr was confused because he’s cheerful.

The doctor also said to me in a very impatient and angry tone don’t you know what you’re doing, when I was asked to hold my son in a particular way so they could check his ears. A nurse kindly stepped in a showed me.

After speaking to a second doctor I’m told 2 hours later to watch his breathing and if he manages to have half of his normal amount of feed then we’ll be okay. We’re sent home. I must add my 5 month old son went 7 1/2 hours between feeds and he still struggled to feed. No matter who I told, nobody seemed to care.

Thursday 

I call the ward late morning for advice and they tell me to call back in the evening if my son hadn’t improved, I end up phoning back as he seems to just get worse. After bringing my son back to ward 2 at Dr Grays, they could see he was still really struggling to breathe but I was also concerned about him not taking feeds. The doctor who was there gave some questionable feedback about his ‘normal’ feed intake. Said for his age (now 6 months) and his weight, his usual 7 oz five to six times a day was too much. 

After waiting over 30 minutes for a room to be cleaned (even though they knew I was coming in and staying overnight) we were taken through. At this point my son’s so exhausted as his sleep has been interrupted and the night shift nurse wants me to feed him every hour. I understand the reasoning but I tell the night nurse that won’t work because that’s not long enough between feeds. At around 4am I put my foot down and agree to go 4 hours between feeds. Just after midnight the same nurse comes back into the room (waking my son up and doesn’t even try to be quiet and crashes into everything possible in the room) and says they need to put oxygen on my son as he’s struggling so much.

This was one of the most upsetting things to watch as the nurse wasn’t gentle with my son at all. The utter distress this nurse caused was heartbreaking and because my son was wiggling and crying, the nurse actually got verbally angry at my 6 month child. This behaviour was extremely unprofessional. This nurse also ended up marking my son’s face with the tape they used to hold the oxygen tubes down and that mark turned into a blister. His face was a mess of ripped tape that wasn’t even stuck on properly. It got to the stage where it was impossible to feed him with the oxygen going up his nose and the excess tubing around his head so I had to ask the same nurse to turn it off, disconnect it just so I could feed him.

I must note too that every machine my son was hooked up to was excessively loud. I know these machines can be turned down so why nobody was considerate enough to do that baffles me. That night I ended up getting 2 hours sleep due to the nurses coming and going and upsetting and being aggressive with my baby.

Friday 

In the morning with the day shift nurses I found out my son only needed oxygen for a small part of the night. On one hand I was glad and the other angry as a lot of distress could have been avoided. The day shift nurse,  spent the whole of the shift trying to find ways to prop my son’s cot up. Night shift had said his cot was broken and the theory was if my son was on a tilt then it would help him breathe. At the end of the shift this nurse came into the room and said they had been fiddling with the other cots and they all seemed to work so even though they had been told our cot was broken, the nurse just wanted to test it. The nurse pushed the button on the remote and it worked. I never saw night shift try to work his cot and this nurse day nurse just took their word for it that it was broken. If this had been resolved sooner, we could have gone home.

That morning a doctor came in to see how my son was doing and actually said to me “if someone was to check my oxygen levels when I slept, I’d need help too as that’s how much our levels dip”... , I told our same day nurse what the doctor had said and they seemed angry because a) it was false information and b) it was an unprofessional comment to make. 

Throughout the whole of Friday the doctors wanted my son to have 2 naps, if his oxygen while he slept showed at being 90 or above then we could go home. Typically his’s oxygen sat at 89. The entire day can only be described as a form of torture. And I do not say that lightly.

After spending an hour settling my son down and getting him to sleep I would buzz for the nurse to come in. The oxygen probe would be put on his foot and the nurse struggled to put the oxygen tube up his nose. The machine the foot probe was attached to was so deafening loud that the nurses could hear it down the corridor with our door closed. No matter how many times they turned it down it just seemed to jump back up to the highest volume setting. This of course would wake my son up, he would get extremely distressed the nurses would come in and unhook him from the oxygen and probe and leave me to get him to sleep again.

The noise from the machine actually hurt my ears. This awful process went on 5 times and took the whole day. It wasn’t until a different night shift nurse came in and questioned as to why the grey box was being used for the foot probe as the white machine it was sat on did the same job and was quieter. It was at this point I said to this nurse I wanted to make a complaint. I said that so far I felt nobody has actually helped my, all they’ve done in my opinion is cause more harm than good.

Friday Evening

This is the only good part of our entire hospital experience. I can’t thank this day nurse enough. Straight away they offered me a bed, a toothbrush, a gown because I didn’t have pyjamas with me, towels for a shower. They were the only person who cleaned and sterilised my son’s bottles and dummy. This nurse was nothing but smiles, calming, nothing was too much trouble. They even let me sleep all night and fed and changed my son, not making any noise. When you’re in a hospital these small gestures are so powerful and make all the difference, & they even got a bath for him. This nurse also said because my son was under the age of 1, they would have to contact my Health Visitor to let her know he was in hospital. This nurse was the only person who did this and told me which just shows what bad practice every single person had before their shift. This nurse was the only person who followed the law. 

Saturday

The 2 doctors came in to see how my son was doing. He was sleeping and instead of gently waking him up, the doctor prodded and Poked him and shook him. Their are ways to wake up a baby and that was not it. They put both sides of the cot bars down. The second doctor stripped Noah down to his nappy and sat him up and then let go. They assumed he could sit unaided. He can’t. He fell forwards nearly whacking his head on the cot bars, they just managed to catch him. Once they were done they both walked away. Nobody put the cot sides back up! This is neglect. God forbid if he had rolled over Properly ( which he does really quickly). I would be suing the hospital. God help them if he had landed on that floor because I just grabbed him in time, as he started to roll. They also left him exposed in just his nappy.

Finally:

I know this is a long complaint spanning over 4 days but our time at Dr Grays, The Oaks was just awful. I’m not one to normally complain but these things can not be overlooked. I do not trust any of the doctors at Dr Grays nor the nurses (bar the lovely day nurse). These are the points I want to highlight:

- On the NHS website, all of my son’s symptoms should have been an ambulance call straight away. Not once did anyone I speak to highlight this. I thought I was doing the right thing following what 111 said but I’ll never be phoning then again. ‘Jokes’ shouldn’t have been made about my son struggling to breathe and it shouldn’t have taken 3 hours to get us to A&E. that is appalling service. 

- The utter shambles of The Oaks and the nurse giving me false information, not telling Dr Grays we were coming, being so unorganised and unprofessional and having zero sense of urgency. 

- Doctors at Grays being verbally rude and dismissing my baby when they said over and over “he’s clearly struggling to breathe”. Also the fact that nobody cared a baby went 7 and a half hours between feeds.

- The night shift nurse who:

- caused unnecessary distress to my son

- marking his face

- making rude and angry comments about my son in front of me

- not checking if his cot worked 

- not using the oxygen mask

- not using a quieter machine 

- Nurses being so forceful trying to take a swab up my son's nose that they made it bleed. 

-Inappropriate comments with false information made from doctors 

-2 doctors leaving both cot sides down and assuming he could sit up almost causing him to smack his head off cot bars. 

Everything that’s happened could have been avoided. Our experience was a disgrace and extremely disappointing. I do expect someone to get in touch with me regarding this complaint. 

Many thanks