"Appalling. Do not give birth here!"

It has been 12 weeks since I have given birth here. (Jan 2015) The memories still haunt me and this is the first time I have been able to write about it. Funnily enough I see many disappointing reviews dating a couple years- it is obviously a poorly run service. It's irritating to me to see the bog standard response that 'we take these reviews seriously' what a joke! Nothing has changed. I had no choice to give birth here as my son was to be transferred to great ormond street. You'd think as a high risk patient (my son has a congenital heart defect) that we would be treated with some care...nope! We were left for 10 hours on the delivery ward to be 'carefully induced' given my history of very quick labours and of course my sons need for immediate intervention. We were told there was a need for this wait in order to ensure the relevant team were there to support the baby.. (Ironic...keep reading..) we had interchangeable midwifes (there was obviously an extreme lack of them!), had no doctor around to check my baby after many problems- a huge clot, serious reaction to induction pessary, hyper stimulation, baby's low heart rate, bright red bleeding...the works! Apparently everyone was 'busy'. The miserable midwife I had eventually went to get a doctor (leaving us with a student) after a second bleed and my waters breaking) i could barely speak due to hyper stimulation - these people did not know my case they weren't the original staff I had - I was attempting to tell them about my quick labours. The doctor kept saying the consultant was 'with a patient busy..)- within seconds I had one push- i had told them well before this that I felt pressure! My baby boy was born needing immediate intubation. Right in front of me ... And during this time - no word of a lie - the same midwife proceeded to ask me to 'Get off the bed so I clean the sheets...' Whilst my son was fighting for his life. I was in shock - I believe now they wanted to clean the blood as they later wrote in my notes I had a blood clot the size of a 50p piece and little bleed. Lie. I am so upset with this hospital. I am already going through PALS. I just hope nobody else has to suffer here. I have had two previous births at Watford and lister- both were brilliant. I truly believe my boy would have had a better chance at his heart surgery had these people actually planned my birth - a high risk birth - but they didn't. To top it all off I was sent to a post natal ward full of babies - whilst mine was unable to breathe alone in icu. I asked several times to be moved - eventually 8 hours later- I was given a room. They failed my son.