"Great midwives but extremely understaffed"

Having been admitted to hospital for preeclampsia at 36 weeks, my stay lasted a week. The midwives were supportive and lovely people but so clearly overworked and the wards were extremely understaffed. It led to me and my baby being forgotten about during my stay too often without my basic needs being met and resulted in lots of stress, tears and anxiety. There is obvious communication problems within the wards as we were having to buzz for staff and repeat ourselves constantly in order to get the basic care we needed which at one point resulted in being left without drinking water, blood pressure medication and a blood pressure test for hours. Obviously preclampsia is a very serious condition and I needed certain needs meeting at certain times to prevent severe illness. At one point having come out of a c-section operation, and placed in recovery, I felt totally forgotten about and after asking numerous times about the care I was supposed to be receiving, my partner went out on his own accord and exchanged a few stern words to a midwife in order to obtain the level of care we required. It had a lasting impact on my mental health and affected how I felt about my care during the remainder of my stay.