"Understaffed unit"

I would like to first point out that I have written a complaint to the Southern General and will be receiving my response this week.

In this complaint I make it very clear that the midwife who delivered my son in September was excellent and I couldn't have been happier that she was the midwife present at the birth.

Some of the issues I faced were:

1. They agreed to administer me diamorphine but 2. 5 hours later I still hadn't received it. I was told repeatedly that "the doctor was very busy" and I was left in pain.

2. The staff in the pre natal ward informed the delivery suite that my waters had broken when in fact they hadn't. This prolonged my labour unnecessarily.

3. They failed to put me in a recovery room following a 34 hour labour, having received diamorphine, two epidurals, a spinal block and a forceps delivery. The midwifei informed us that we would be going into a recovery room for a few hours. My husband therefore left and went home (10 minute journey) to collect some of my belongings only to return and be told that he had to go home because it was past 8pm and I was being transferred to the ward.

3. I was not allowed to hold my son without a midwife being present because of the amount of drugs I had taken but there weren't enough midwives to sit with me. This led to me not being able to hold him for the first 6 hours of his life apart from the first hour in the delivery suite.

4. At 4am I went to the toilet and had two huge gushes of blood and hit the emergency button. I must admit that they attended quickly and apart from the doctor checking whether or not I was okay there was no additional attention. This led to me feeling vulnerable and ultimately unsafe.

5. had no time to show me breastfeeding and due to being rushed off their feet simply pushed my son on me and then walked away. This meant that they failed to diagnose my son's tongue tie which later needed snipped.

6. Due to the staff having no time to spend with patients when I requested help I was made to feel like a nuisance and the manner in which they spoke to me was abrupt.

I do believe that all these issues are a result of the unit being understaffed and you could see how stressed and run of their feet they were. I am very fortunate that we had the midwife we had and that there were no issues with my son's health but I feel strongly that something needs to be done to ease the pressure and provide patients with a better experience.