"Attended as advised to"

Anything else?

Due to pregnancy problems we (my partner and I) were advised to contact our on call midwife, the community advise line or the birthing unit if we had any problems. Having had some "problems" and my GP being shut ,the on call midwife not answering the phone. We called the hospital for advise. We were extremely pleased we did as the most pleasant knowledgeable midwife spoke to us - she was the height of professionalism and advised us we did need to be seem but it wasn't too urgent. My partner and I made our way down and we waiting 1 hour in the reception area of the birthing unit, which we didn't mind at all as all the staff were lovely and kept reminding us, they'd not forgotten about us and where drinks were etc. I can't fault them! When we got to 'triage' the took the normal blood pressure and notes (again fine) we then were left for 1 hour before a baby monitor was strapped onto my stomach to measure the babies heart rate. Again fine and we understood they were busy and we weren't urgent. I was on the monitor for 1 hour with no re-assurance or support from anyone and the lady in the triage cubicle in front of me had been there since early afternoon (its now late evening) in a similar position. The midwife's seemed completely lovely but under staffed and the doctors didn't seem to support them in the slightest. We observed a senior doctor (who's name was top on the white board) write his name then sit in his office and when the midwife's asked for support he said that someone else would do it. There were 3 doctors/consultants. 1 (we understood) was in surgery (understandable) and 1 had 12 delivery rooms and another ward as well as triage in the birthing unit to look after. My partner did ask the midwife's if we could go home and they had to wait for a doctor. It was 1 hour after the midwife requested the doctor that she came. Once again there is slight blame here that she took soo long but equally the doctors senior college was still sat in his office when we left and was metres away from the triage unit. We over heard the midwife's (who did a great job) moan they hadn't had a doctor in triage for 6 hrs hence the back-log and bed shortage. When we left we'd been in there 5 hrs - 1 hour waiting to be seen, 4 hrs in triage with little staff interaction and 1 hour waiting for a doctor. We joked that in labour when you to wait 3-4 hrs to attend the unit that the baby would be born if we had to wait an additional 5 hrs on top.