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Care Opinion

Antenatal visits

Posted By mercuryzj67

"Antenatal visits"

About: St George Hospital

(as the patient),

I am 24 weeks pregnant and I have opted for the shared GP & Hospital antenatal care. I am expecting twins and I have so far been three times to the St George Public Hospital. My experience is so far is very disappointing. I have heard about STOMP (St George Outreach Maternity Program) just a few days ago, but I am surprised that during these three visits no one has spoken to me about this service. I am not sure what the service is and how to get onto the program. There is very little information on the hospital website. In fact, it is impossible to find anything on the website because the latter is always down and comes up with an Error! 

In my opinion, the last two visits were very mediocre and we would think that we are in a developing country ward. I was at the Twins Clinic. The doctor wanted to do the routine ultrasound scan. She came with a machine that I felt looked like it was from the middle ages and she couldn't even listen to the babies heartbeats because she didn't know how to operate that function in a machine so old. The intern doctor also was lost as he didn't seem to know how to operate the blood pressure machine. I also find that there is no continuity of care. I understand that being in a public hospital, you see whoever is on duty at the time. But, it seems that even my file keeps being misplaced. I had to provide copies of scan reports and blood tests which are supposed to be in the file. I honestly do not have much confidence in the care I am getting. 

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Responses

Response from Leisa Rathborne, General Manager, St George Hospital 5 years ago
Leisa Rathborne
General Manager,
St George Hospital

Submitted on 23/08/2018 at 2:08 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 3:31 PM

picture of Leisa Rathborne

Dear mercuryzj67,

Thank you for your feedback and I am sorry that you have been disappointed with the care received to date at St George Hospital.

Generally, if a woman has already chosen a model of care, in your case GP Shared Care at booking, then another model of care would not generally be discussed during routine visits. This is perhaps the reason why you were not initially informed about the St George Outreach Maternity Program (STOMP). I note your feedback about there being no information about this program on our website. We are currently in the process of updating our website to make it more user friendly and accessible for our community and this information will certainly be included soon.

There is recruitment criteria for STOMP and I would encourage you to contact the Midwifery Unit Manager on 9113 2294 so we can explore this further with you and discuss the most appropriate model of care for you going forward.

In relation to your concerns about the Twins Clinic and the ultrasound machine used, we have taken this feedback on board. We were disappointed to hear of your poor experience. St George is a training Hospital and we support junior doctors in their early training phases in the antenatal clinic. We are understanding of their training needs and always offer support and supervision by a senior medical officer and educator. The clinic itself is also run by a very experienced doctor and the ultrasound machine was a recent purchase by the Hospital. We are proud of the clinic which we have set up to ensure that we can provide this service to our local community. Traditionally, our patients have had to travel to the Royal Hospital for Women to receive this service.

I thank you again for raising your concerns. If you require further information, or have any further concerns, please contact our Patient Experience Manager, Mr Anthony Marsh on 9113 2687 or Anthony.Marsh@health.nsw.gov.au.

Yours faithfully,

Leisa

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