"Treatment of miscarriage and delivery at Queen Alexandra Hospital"

Its taken us nearly two years to feel able to talk so much about things, but we feel the treatment we had at the hospital made the most traumatic loss of our baby even more unbearable. We lost our baby daughter at around 18 weeks of pregnancy,

I feel the local birth & aftercare centre had been supportive, after a complete lack of response from our appointed midwife, but after being unable more than once to detect a heartbeat, we were sent to the QA hospital for an ultrasound.

It confirmed the worst, our daughter had died, likely around a week earlier. After the traumatic news, we were taken to a quiet room, and promptly, it appeared, completely forgotten for well over an hour, we began to wonder when they would return to explain what needed to happen. In the mean time, the room we were in had a view of the sonograph room, leaving us to watch others with what appeared much happier news. We knew my wife would have to go through induction to give birth, as it was too far along in the pregnancy.

We were given an appointment and returned two days later. When we arrived, the nurses we spoke too seemed to have no idea who we were or why we were there, let alone seemed to care that we were coming to terms with a loss, rather than being there for an abortion or any other form of treatment. They were asking us but my wife's name was on the whiteboard right behind them. I can hardly describe how awkward it was to have to explain that we were there to give birth to our lost daughter.

We felt the treatment was shocking enough, the pills given, to bring on labour, and the information we were given to read was for an abortion tablet, that's hard to stomach when you would give anything in the world to bring back your baby.

Even worse, we felt the care was so intermittent that my wife eventually gave birth to our daughter alone in the toilet, into a paper bedpan. We felt from that point on the treatment was abominable. We were there overnight, and the staff on duty left my wife for the entire night sat in bed in blood, unable to move because of the drip still in her hand.

The empty drip.

The empty drip that the night staff we dealt with seemed incapable of removing.

I spent a long time trying to find staff to help during that night, but they never seemed to be around, or no one capable of doing so. If I did find them, they promised to attend, but no one came. I was nearly shouting at people to get some action. No one seemed to have any idea what to do with us or what instructions to follow for us.

Come the morning, we had to wait until shift change for a Nurse (as opposed to the night staff that seemed unqualified to do anything) to spend all of 2 minutes removing the drip so my wife could finally shower and clean up from the birth.

The nurse on the morning shift was understanding, but it was, quite frankly far too little, far too late.

Painfully, we were also informed that because we were at the time unmarried, our daughter could only be named after my wife, rather than in my name. We felt she was in effect, labelled more like medical waste than as a human being.

And then to top it all off, despite previous assurances from the nurses we spoke to on arrival, the car park attendant then tried to enforce an overnight parking charge, of around £15, for the time we'd spent there. I was able to talk him down, but he only gave in he told me because it was a Sunday. Myself, I'd have driven into the barriers at that point.

All in all, we felt we received poor, unsanitary treatment and a callous lack of even common sense when dealing with people in absolutely the worst kind of pain.