Saturday 26 February 2011

'The staff didn’t seem to think it was that unusual, they said it happens a lot.'

Frances Randall, 21, had been waiting for three hours to be moved to a maternity ward when her baby arrived as her partner and mother desperately looked for help.

He was delivered by a stranger in the room, but fell to the floor and hit his head.
I know the hospital well - it's a £238 million disaster area.
The woman who came to her aid, Kiran Deep Virdee, 52, added: ‘It is disgusting that in this country she had to give birth on a chair. She was given no dignity.’
You thought you were in a First World country, didn't you? You were wrong, at least when it comes to Queen's Hospital...

This isn't their first maternity-related screw-up, after all:
Queen’s Hospital’s head of midwifery, Sue Lovell, apologised for the latest incident and said a new triage system was being introduced.

‘When labouring women arrive they will be seen immediately by a midwife and moved straight to the most appropriate area, whether that be the labour ward or ante-natal,’ she said.

‘This will eliminate the need for women to stay in waiting areas.’
It didn't occur to you to do this before..?

5 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

You beat me to it!

Dr Vegas said...

Keep up the good (and important) work on this blog.

Have you thought about ending each post with your suggestion of how the problem could be fixed? I'm sure you have some good ideas. Otherwise the danger is it comes across as just another Daily Mail rant

JuliaM said...

Most of the answers would be along the lines of 'heed your own guidelines and rules', though, wouldn't they?

It's not often that you see a case where the consequences of doing as they did weren't staring them in the face.

Ed P said...

Do you think the people on the committee in the quango responsible for cancelling part of the midwifery service, the direct causal link to this sordid tale, might be found and brought to justice?

Rachel said...

I'm surprised that their "old" triage system didn't consider labouring women to be a priority. What do they expect?!