"Terrible Experience Maternity Unit"

Anything else?

I have been followed up at the Newham University Hospital during my whole pregnancy (I am now 34 weeks along). We have had to be back and forth as we have been diagnosed with an Sua pregnancy. The unit we were seen to (zone 4) was clean and nice. However when finding out about our pregnancy potential complication we had to face a very crude and unprofessional staff. Throwing very scary words to our faces without explaining anything. This said the follow up of the unit was overall statisfaying. However, last night (26 of may 2013) I have had very sharp pain under my rib cage for hours and felt generally unwell. We got in at 3am, greated by a receptionist who didn't communicate well and whom apparently didn't know what a rib cage was. Once signed in we had to find a seat in the tiny waiting room already packed with women obviously in labour, with a few women in the corridors bouncing against the wall in pain. A few minutes later a man came in looking for his wife apparently in labour. The receptionist told him rudely she wasn't.nthere no matter how convinced the man was. And he had to look somewhere else. Later on the same man came back and ask her to pick up the phone and find out for to which she answered it wasn't her job. Finally a midwife stepped in and found the lady which was as the man said in the labour ward. Meanwhile two ladies around me obviously at a very advanced stage of labour were left crying and groining with pain for hours. None of the staff around checked them once and when asked for help they were just told to sit and wait in a very rudely maner. Finally one of the lady was told off kicking a fuss as they said baby don't arrive like this. 15 minutes later she could feel the head coming out and ended up being looked after ... The other ladies were still there waiting to be seen. When I ended up being seen to the midwife was sighing every ten second saying how tired she was and how long the night had been. She was endlessly complaining of how unwell she was. She wasn't wearing any gloves, almost using uncleaned monitors on my stomach and used the paper under my shoes to clean my stomach from the gel after examination. I actually feel extremely lucky to have witness first hand how the unit is run. There is no way on earth I will be back to this hospital. Also, the extreme rudeness and lack of empathy shown by the staff was absolutely appalling.