Southerly: A Year Ago Today
62 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 Newer→ Last
-
'Shoving mothers out the door early' is NOT a midwife decision
Oh, believe me, I've heard midwives bitch about it. And their vanishing petrol allowance.
-
Care to name names Emma?
"Vanishing( fuel )allowance' is a legitimate grouch when you have to travel to be with a client and receive no recompense - that has nothing to do with unnecessarily early discharge. I note that you confuse maternity nurses with midwives also- -
Islander, my daughter is named after my midwife, who was one of the Domino group. She and the other midwives I dealt with were brilliant. Given I was out at Lincoln after the birth of my second, the fuel allowance was a real problem. I think you've misidentified the side of the argument I'm on.
-
In the spirit of ME TO, we also had a son about three weeks ago.
I am so thankful that our experience with the health system was so much better than yours (though, obviously, not that you had to go through what you did). We had several issues to deal with during our mission to have a baby and at every stage (all public) I have always been so impressed and almost surprised at the competence, professionalism and empathy shown by all concerned. I have always come away from the hospital feeling that my tax dollars are being very well spent.
When our birth came (a little early) we ended up spending three nights in NICU. A very minor ailment, but as you say, no fun for the parents whatsoever.
Auckland Hospital (the new location of National Women's?) allowed me to crash on a mattress on the floor of my wife's room. They even had a form for me to fill out (basically agreeing not to run around naked after dark) so it is obviously something they do often.
Reading stories like yours makes me so angry. I really hope you took, or take, this up with the appropriate authorities. Treatment like you received needs to be brought to the attention of the authorities so that change can occur.
-
I spoke to a boss today, asked her what Auckland was like and why was Chch as I had read. Her response was a few things
1 Space is not a luxury so with, limited space, it goes to mums first.
2 Privacy (as much as possible) is a priority for women (up to 8) in each room so consideration is given to the group situation.
3 Shared toilet in each room, so men sharing is considered as an inconvenience for mothers just given birth.
The one thing she mentioned was she felt it was an awkward situation for everyone involved as there was an understanding for dads and where it left their headspace but also says, make an arrangement by request before, and something can be arranged for overnight stay but that is Auckland and it ain't a facility that specifically for dads. -
pkiwi wrote:
Birth is a risky process and there is an intense fragility about it that some are unaware of.
Thank you for talking about this, pkiwi. What an awful and tragic turn of events. I can only imagine what you must have gone through -- a truly terrible situation.
David.
-
my daughter is named after my midwife, who was one of the Domino group
Domino midwives should get collectively on the NZ order of merit, I reckon.
-
Domino midwives should get collectively on the NZ order of merit, I reckon.
I still carry Kate's card in my wallet, just in case I run into anyone in desperate need of a midwife.
-
A dead baby at the end of it, despite some talented caring people
I am so, so sorry to hear that, pkiwi. My sincerest condolences to you and yours. What a shit. And how right you are. There is an intense fragility around the birthing process.
-
My deep condolences too pkiwi, and thank you for sharing and reminding us all that not all birth stories end up with a happy bouncing one year old.
Earlier this year I had the misfortune to experience the inside of an ICU (North Shore, as a visitor) and now that I have that mental furniture I find any mention of an ICU (let alone an NICU) tugs on the tear ducts. The staff do their best, but they can't always win.
-
My deepest sympathies, pkiwi. Reading your account has brought rushing back the wrenching memories of our son's birth at Middlemore in the mid-90s. It was our second hospital birth and my wife was ill with toxaemia/high BP (?) and she was admitted a week before the birth was due. I received a phone call at 3am advising that she was well advanced in labour and the birth was imminent and I raced the 60km to the hospital. As events transpired it was 4pm before the action really started. We had been assigned a trainee midwife whose bedside manner I instantly disliked - flippant and superior. Roving bands of students/registrars (?) trailed in the wake of a woman I presume was in charge that day (cf Monty Python's MoL where the sycophants compete to applaud loudest at the administrator's smug disclosure of his tax-efficient funding wheezes). The birthing suites were being renovated and the attendant dispruption seemed to affect the operation of the entire department's staff and systems. Baby was largish, presented posterior and got jammed when just his head was born. It was now they discovered the umbilical around his neck. The midwife clamped and cut the umbilical at this point and then couldn't deliver him. 2 minutes passed and a crowd of nurses and a specialist appeared. An older, more experienced, midwife or nurse shoved from the top of my wife's belly (fundus?) and literally yanked baby out. She held this limp, grey, silent form before me and, exhausted and stressed, I crumpled. For about 20 seconds I sobbed uncontrollably as they worked to revive him. I was jolted back to the world by my wife's pleading, "Don't leave him". In the wake of the Ob specialist and nurses I ran to SCBU where I watched them place him in one of the incubators, a palsy in his wrist suggesting he'd taken some spinal injury. He survived. He's 12 now and while he has some issues [he's on that spectrum, RB] I think with our continuing help he'll be ok in life. What makes me shake with anger at this recollection is the behaviour of the hospital staff immediately following the incident. My wife was quite badly injured and she was left alone, naked and bleeding - no bed coverings, while the staff who had attended her disappeared. My firm belief is that they predicted a fatality and immediately gathered to get their respective stories straight. The trainee midwife returned to torment my wife with a catalogue of likely brain damage to our son. My mother in law had arrived , bless her, she booted the mid-wife out. Everything in the hospital staff's actions suggested to me that their primary intention was to deny or distribute liability - exactly the realignment of priorities I feared would grip social institutions once the then-government's "funder-provider" model gained sufficient traction in popular opinion to permit them to abrogate their responsibility to maintain standards.
-
Reading these blogs make me appreciate the care we had at Waitakere Hospital, and the fact we had a bossy midwife who wouldn't take any crap.
Bob looks beautiful, great writing David.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.