"Empathy does not exist here!"

Absolutely appalling experience had at this hospital for the first and hopefully to God the last! I was rushed here earlier this month around 3:00am in the morning due to surgery complications. I explained to everyone from the ambulance team to the hospital team that as a single parent, there was no one close by to look after my child while I was on admission. I was advised that we would be put in pediatric ward if there were no suitable bed spaces. We were wheeled into a room which to start with had filthy soaked linen and I asked for it to be changed as didn’t want to be infected by another patient’s bodily fluid.

We got moved several times to different rooms although I appreciate that even though I felt well and wanted to go home and carry on with my life normally, the consultants needed to observe me. Considering my personal circumstances and having no relatives close by, I requested to be allowed to go home, get my child to school and if any further bleeding occurred, I would get myself to the hospital and was refused this option however what followed was the most appalling treatment I had ever experienced. My child was made very unwelcome and I kept being asked when he was going to be taken away from me at the hospital. When I informed the nurses that there was no one immediately available as the admission was an emergency and unplanned for, I was threatened with social services being called. I was admitted to be observed but the pressure and stress I was made to be under was absolutely immense and unsympathetic. My child till today recalls how many times I was asked to get rid of my child simply because I am a lone parent. It’s a shame that such treatment had to be served to a patient in this day and age. It turned out this was solely because they needed to move me into a shared ward.

There was no care shown for my wellbeing nor that of my child and I was hounded at least 15 times and given a deadline of 3pm to get my child out of the hospital before social services were called. I hadn’t done anything wrong other than to have been ill and had medical complications which affected mine and my child’s life but was met with so much aggression and lack of sympathy from the staff at this hospital. I pray fervently that I never have to visit here again in my lifetime and hope my child heals from the scars and emotional trauma faced whilst being aware he was being forcefully taken away from his only parent he was reliant on in his life . I was pushed to the point of asking to be discharged not because I was happy to go but because myself and my child were such a huge inconvenience to the staff! Never again to God in my lifetime I pray please never to experience anything so humiliating like this again.