"Terrible Practice "

I was left feeling ashamed, judged, taken advantage of and bullied. There was 1 excellent nurse and if it wasn’t for that staff member I would have run out and not come back. Unfortunately the same can not be said for all staff. A nurse whilst interviewing me said “what went wrong then?” I was taken aback so the nurse repeated the question “what got you into this mess? Were you using contraception?”. After I had replied and then stated that I would prefer not to have any hormonal birth control fitted and I would like to continue with my current contraception the nurse replied “no you’re not, that’s what got you into this mess” as if I was a 12 year old child, not an adult woman. The nurse then showed disbelief about some of my answers given, as if I was lying about information I knew would be easily checked on my medical records anyway. All my statements were dismissed as if I was somehow in capable of making any decisions for myself. Marie Stopes also made a mistake with my booking, which added considerable stress, but I was blamed instead of apologised to. I decided not to argue back as I was genuinely scared of causing a fuss when my life is literally in the clinic’s hands. I was then given the tablets to prepare for the procedure, even though the staff knew they were 2 and half hours behind schedule already. There was then another hour on top of that waiting. This meant cramping and other nasty side affects kicked in whilst I was waiting, which simply could have been avoided if the staff were honest with us that they were already so many hours behind and would continue to be. I have absolutely no problem with several hours of waiting, I expect it, in fact I was expecting 4 or 5, as I know staff are carrying out difficult procedures under a lot of pressure..but what I object to is staff knowingly giving women medication that has side affects when they know full well the clinic has been running hours behind. They could have given us the choice to wait and take the tablets when the wait was looking shorter, say 2 hours, instead of finding out from other scared women. The team completing the surgical procedure seemed very nice, I only met them briefly but they seemed polite, kind and professional. I would like to thank them for making the day less terrifying than it had become. I feel very sorry for the staff members at Marie Stopes who do do a good job, as their hard work is undermined by the staff who choose to be unkind. It was an incredibly difficult decision and emotionally challenging time of my life, but I wasn’t expecting to be left feeling even more overwhelmed, small, ashamed and powerless by the clinic itself.