"Bad experience at the Rosie Hospital"

My wife and I went to the Rosie Hospital in January 2015. My wife’s waters had broken two days before but the contractions had not become regular and so at midday on day two we were admitted so she could be induced. After being shown to our room we then had to wait seven hours to be seen. My wife had very painful contractions, four or five times over the course of the afternoon we requested painkillers and Zantac using the push button or with me going to reception. Every single time we were completely ignored, my wife was left in terrible pain, completely abandoned, for seven hours. We were not even offered paracetamol. Eventually we were seen and my wife was induced. The implant didn’t work so she had to have another one (that wasn’t the fault of the hospital). My wife was given a TENS machine which took the edge off her contractions, until the battery ran out leaving her in pain again. Despite repeated requests it took well over four hours to have the battery replaced. Eventually labour was able to start towards the end of day three after waters breaking. My wife was in labour and encouraged to push for over an hour. After an hour nothing had happened so we were seen by a doctor, who noticed that the baby was being born face first so we were rushed to theatre where the baby was born with forceps. Surely the midwife should have noticed that it was inappropriate to push if the baby was not correctly positioned? Surely this is a very basic thing? My wife spent the night on the ward. At 10am the next day they said that she could go home, subject to the result of a blood test. We didn’t get the blood test result until after six pm, and that was only because I lost patience and nagged them every ten minutes from 4pm. Even then it took them until 8.30 pm to do the paperwork to finally release us. We were exhausted, all we desperately wanted to do was to go home and recover but we were left hanging around for ten and a half hours because of the utterly hopeless organisation of the Rosie Hospital. Finally I would like to mention the food that my wife was offered. First of all there was no vegetarian option. When my wife was given a plate of boiled vegetables she found that they were mouldy. From my point of view I couldn’t even get a cup of coffee during our stay because all the vending machines were out of order. On the plus side many of the midwifes were understanding and professional, as was the anaesthetist. We are happy that the doctor who saw us saw right away that something was wrong and took literally minutes to sort it out. When we were actually seen then the staff of the Rosie Hospital were (by and large) quite good. But the excessive waiting, the total lack of information and updates were nothing short of disgraceful. We really felt that nothing happened unless we nagged and made a fuss. We are so disappointed, especially considering that Addenbrookes is generally such an excellent hospital.