"Labour in maternity triage waiting room"

I arrived at triage at around 9pm and was told that the unit was very busy and there were no beds available to examine me. I was asked to wait in the triage waiting room.

Over the next hour my labour progressed and despite my husband and finally myself asking for help on a number of occasions I had the degrading experience of active labour with no pain relief in front of the 10 or so members of the public in the waiting area. At one point I spoke to the triage staff myself and begged for pain relief, telling them that I didn’t need assessed and it was clear that I needed to go straight to the labour ward but again this was ignored.

I was finally taken to a triage room at around 10pm and almost instantly wanted to push, at this point I was very quickly taken to the labour ward and from then on felt very cared for by the midwife who looked after me.

I understand that triage was very busy however on this occasion in the persuit of following protocol I was totally and utterly failed by the system, furthermore the lack of compassion and care and the fact that I wasn’t listened to by the triage staff is inexcusable.