"Shocking"

Two of my sisters have just given birth at Ipswich hospital and I am thankful I have moved to London and won't have to experience what I can only describe as traumatic, degrading and sub standard care that they have had to endure. Never will I put myself though childbirth at Ipswich Hospital or entrust them with the care of any of my future children if I can ever help it.

I have just had my sister on the phone in tears because after 4 days in labour, a threat of c section and a forceps delivery, she has been abandoned in a room, where no one has come to even offer her a cup of tea. She is in pain, has been offered no pain relief until I called up the hospital from home and demanded someone go to attend to her. She said she went out but there was no one on the nurses station.

She has been talked down to and chastised for being shy ( she is naturally shy) and unsure of a few things, as if she is a nuisance. She often goes shy in stress, and when she first went in on a Friday the initial midwife asked her what was going on. She was having a contraction so my mother responded, to which they got a snappy and frankly rude response of 'Any questions I have will be directed at you (to my sister) and I don't expect anyone else to be answering'. Thank fully at this point she was not dilated enough and was sent home, and they all agreed that if they went back they would request another midwife. This was the beginning of a terrible start.

For a young first time mum, who had her baby rushed away from her in the early hours in the morning, and had her partner and mother told to leave literally ten minutes after she got back from surgery whilst she was still shaking from the pain and epidural, then left with her new born baby when she couldn't even move, this was a frightening and traumatic experience. The midwives during the birth in both cases were apparently amazing, the doctors less so, they seemed unsure and stressed out which in turn stressed out my sister.

When the baby was taken to the neonatal ward, they went to see her in the morning and the staff in the ward didn't say hello or goodbye to them. When I went with my mother to visit, we also said goodbye to them and got not a flicker of a response, which Is just down right rude. Bearing in mind there was no one else there and they were just sat down.

The aftercare is absolutely unacceptable. I will be putting in a formal complaint on their behalf. I have had surgery myself in this hospital and I remember waiting over an hour after I pressed the bell for pain relief. I eventually gave up, and when I mentioned it the next day I was told I couldn't have been in that much pain if I gave up!!

This barbaric and medieval manner of treating human beings is just beyond belief. We are in the 21st century and you seem to be stuck in the 50's, when women had to put up and shut up. You are meant to be looking after them, in the most fragile and vulnerable time of their lives. Sort yourselves out