"Pregnancy Emergency due to bleeding"

I attended the emergency gynaecological unit in St. Mary's hospital in Manchester because I was nearly 10 week pregnant and I had bleeding. First of all the bleeding was just like a brown discharge. I called the hospital and they told me it was "normal" and to keep an eye on it. Then after a few days I had red blood and it is when I decided to go to emergency. I still believe that telling your pregnant patients that a brown discharge is "normal" is not the right approach! It could be a sign of a miscarriage and you should see and treat immediately all pregnant women with this issue and not wait until it gets worst! When I went to the emergency they took my urine sample fairly quickly, then I was sent to the waiting room and waited for one hour for the nurse to take my blood sample, and then waited for another hour to have a chat with the doctor. So overall two hours for all this and the emergency was empty! Very slow service. When I had a chat with the doctor they did an abdominal "examination" literally touched my belly for 5 seconds and that's it. Don't really know what the purpose of that was. I was sent home and next day they called me to give me my blood results and to tell my that I was booked for a scan the day after. That Thurdsay (11th August) my husband and I went to the hospital again, and had the scan. The scan was the most traumatic experience ever, the sonographer was very unprofessional, they didn't show us the screen and they didn't even explain what they were seeing. At the end they said, they couldn't see anything just a sac, no baby. They didn't even call another nurse to double check the scan, that is the right procedure. These moments are very difficulty for pregnant families and the way we were treated was totally unrespectful and unprofessional. They then took us to a quiet room and kept us waiting for one hour! Until a nurse came to "explain" and with a leaflet of miscarriage management! Is this really the way NHS treat women with a miscarriage? We barely had an explanation, never saw a doctor, never saw the scan and we were given a leaflet of miscarriage just like that!

We left the unit all devastated. I then made an appointment two days later with the EPAU in Macclesfield and the experience was totally different, the person who did my scan was a very experienced person and explained to me everything and we even saw my baby, who unfortunately was not alive, but I saw it! And they told me I can't believe how they didn't see anything in st Mary's! So in conclusion you should have a really good look at the st Mary's gynecological emergency staff ! They definitely need further training not only on the technical side but also on the human and moral side, Because I don't want more women like me to have to go thorough this again! It is already a difficult time and NHS must treat each case with dignity and professionalism, because we are human beings not just a NHS number!