"The birth of my son at South Tyneside Hospital"

My son was born in this hospital 2 years ago; I have just discovered this website and felt I had to tell my story.

A week after my son was due my waters broke, I went to the delivery suite and was examined by a midwife, she said my waters had broken and I would be induced within 48 hours to prevent infection to me and the baby. She left the room and came back, said the head midwife didn’t think my waters had broke and to go home and come back on my planned day of induction if I still didn’t go into labour naturally, I never saw the head midwife she didn’t even come into the room I was in.

For a week I had regular contractions and dilated 3 cms, I was made to go in every day for a heart trace of the baby, every time they said I had a sleepy baby as his heart rate kept slowing, a consultant was called each time and said trace looks fine send her home. I would then hear the midwives whispering that they didn’t think the trace looked good.

On planned day of induction I was told there was no bed for me on the delivery suite, was taken to delivery next morning. The midwife I was given tried to break my waters, I told her they had all ready broke but she tried anyway, said oh there is no waters there!

I ended up having an emergency section, during the op the Anaesthetist was arguing with the some of the midwives telling them to shut up, they were also arguing in recovery.

The next morning I was on maternity ward, told to get up and go in shower, I was in agony and was shouted at by a midwife for been in so much pain as apparently she had a section and wasn’t in pain like I was. I was walked to shower then left. I couldn’t bend down to take surgical stockings off so had to call for help, was huffed and puffed at then left again

I was allowed home the next day, a week later after I’d had the staples removed I felt really unwell, I was shaking and my teeth were chattering, my husband said there was an awful smell and liquid was seeping out of my section wound

I was told to go to A&E. The staff on A&E were lovely. A Gynaecologist came to see me, she was also lovely, she touched my wound and it exploded. What seemed like litres and litres of puss went all over her, up the walls and on the floor, she said my abdomen had burst

I was taken back to maternity ward with my son and given 3 bags of blood and intravenous antibiotics. The next day 3 consultants and 2 junior doctors came to see me, they didn’t introduce themselves or say what they were going to do. A midwife was told to get forceps, and they whispered amongst themselves, a midwife was told to lift my stomach up (bit over overhang off pregnancy belly ) a junior doctor proceeded to rip open the part of my wound that had healed, I was offered no pain relief or told what they were doing, I was in absolute agony and screaming at them to stop touching me, they then all left the room

A few hours later a midwife and a auxiliary arrived and told me they needed to get the fluid out of me, this meant the midwife putting both of her hands on my abdomen and pushing as hard as she could, again this was extremely painful and I was crying out and asking her to stop, she didn’t, at this point my husband walked in and asked them what the hell they thought they were doing, she walked out with her head down. He went down to the staff room to ask what was going on but nobody seemed to know

After this my husband wouldn’t leave me and slept in the private room on a chair for a week, another consultant came to see me, said my wound had broken down and you could see my rectal sheath, he said my wound would have to heal from the inside out then it would have to be sown up again, a lovely midwife arranged for me to have a bottle of gas and air brought to me, I used this the 2 times a day the wound was cleaned and packed

A week later the consultant came back and said he would "fix " me

I was taken into theatre and my wound was cleaned and repaired, I was in theatre for 4 hours

it was the worst experience of my life, the way I was treated was an utter disgrace.