March 19th, 2010 | Posted by acidicice

I wanted to blog about the care I received in hospital. I picked my hospital because it is the closest one where my gynae practices. Unfortunately he doesn’t practice at the hospital closest to home. In fact there are two hospitals very close to where we live, but he doesn’t practice there and I <3 him enough to make that compromise!

My gynae was fantastic as usual. He really did everything he could to give me the birth I wanted. It was as close to perfect as I could have hoped for. Booking in and birthing went fine. No problems there.

After the birth, however, it was downhill from there. I asked for a general ward since you need to pay for a semi private or private ward out of your own pocket, the medical aid only covers the general ward and I’m not fussy about having company. I was taken to a semi private (2 bed) room as all the general wards were full already. Nobody else joined me in the room for the duration of my stay. It took them more than 2 hours to bring Babyice to me to breastfeed. Every time Rudi asked them what was taking so long they said they were waiting for a certain nurse to come around for some reason. When they brought him to me to breastfeed they popped him onto my boob and left. They didn’t show me anything or check that I was okay.

My room was right by the nurses station…but that doesn’t mean I got better care. Hell no! Firstly they are a rowdy bunch. ALL hours of the day. I couldn’t get any sleep there. Phones ringing (and not being answered) and general natter. They also continually came into my room to wash their hands as there was a basin right by the door…even if my door was closed they would do this, constantly waking me up if I managed to doze off. They only came to check on me when they were required to do so. One nurse was downright surly.

When we went for our show bath where they show you how to bath your baby just before we left, I picked up that the nurses had been around to the other rooms to give the other mother’s advice on how to clean the baby’s belly button, etc. Nobody ever came to my room.

The lactation specialist that came around spoke to me and gave me some tips, but never actually SHOWED me how to do anything, despite me explicitly telling her that I think I latched him on wrong because my nipple was sore. She pointed me in the direction of nipple creams. Perhaps if Babyice and I were taught properly in hospital how to latch…the breastfeeding thing could have worked out for us.

So yeah. The hospital food wasn’t TOO bad and they did register Babyice at home affairs for us. Big plus…home affairs queues SUCK. The little medi-twinkle dinner they gave Rudi and I was not so much worth the hype, but it was a nice thought.

So all in all the nursing staff sucked ass. Will ask my gynae next time if we can come to an agreement about him coming to a different hospital.

OMG did I just say NEXT TIME?!