"Pregnant Wife's Laparotomy"

Many years ago my Wife suffered from peritonitis and was admitted to hospital in England. After a long drawn out process they operated on her and removed as much of the infection as they could. This was a traumatic experience where we felt that staff were not in control of the situation.

Fast forward 5 years, and after getting the great news that my wife was pregnant (we were told that this would not be possible for us 5 years ago) my wife started to have the same symptoms. She was taken into hospital again with the added complication of being 12 weeks pregnant. The diagnosis was that an adhesion had caused the bowel to block and, after trying a number of alternative solutions the decision was taken to operate. This was a very scary time for us, but I have to say that the staff in Victoria Hospital were all superb.

They were calm, collected and had the time to fully explain what was happening and what the plan was. I felt confident in leaving my wife in the hands of such competent and caring staff. Words cannot express how much this means to both myself and my wife who is now home and doing well. The staff on the Maternity Unit, Wards 52 and 53 (I think) and in the ICU all should know that the care and attention my wife received made having to go through this procedure for a second time a lot easier to deal with.

We saw so many Doctors, Nurses, Midwifes, Physios and healthcare assistants over so many wards we didn't quite know how to feed this back to them all. I sincerely hope the message gets through!