"The staff downstairs in the delivery ..."

What I liked

The staff downstairs in the delivery suite were amazing, apart from the lady that actuially delivered my son. Everyone else on that particular department treated me with respect and sympothy before and after the death of my son.

What could be improved

When I was still in the delivery suite downstairs in slow labour the midwife looking after me wanted to break my waters as I had been in labour all day, but as they were "short staffed" the decision was made to move me to ward C3 until the morning. I received no monitoring over night and when I was eventually seen by the on duty midwife 13 hours later it was found that my baby's hate beat had stopped. So I think more staff on duty is a must. The night staff who should have checked on me was from an agency - so I would like to see more thought going in to the employment process. I was taken back down to the delivery suite where my labour was induced and the midwife who delivered my son was neither sympothetic nor particularly helpful... so I think a review in the maternity department could do with a look at. When we realised there was not a heart beat for my baby we were told we would have to have a scan to confirm things - as this was a saturday the scan department was not open and so had to wait for almost 2 hours - an improvement could be made to have the scan department open more at the weekend as well or again having more staff there able to cope with situations like my own.

Anything else?

Overall my impressions were not too great and have chosen to have my second child at St Mary's instead, even though I live facing Wythenshawe. I can not comment on other aspects of the hospital but for the maternity department it is not somewhere I would like to visit again. My son went on to have a post-mortem where no abnormality in him was detected, but maybe if I was monitored regularly like I was in delivery then something could have been picked up soon enough to deliver my baby boy and he would have been fine. I also have a copy of my notes from all of this and there are things that dont add up for instance " the cord was tightly wrapped around the baby's neck" - this is not true. It also looks like I have got someone elses blood test results - which I am a bit worried about. So I think a bit more care and attention needs to be made.