"About experience of health care for our baby"

Our baby had nasogastric tube in and was unlucky to pull it out them-self. We (parents) were told that surgeons would put it back in before our baby's next feed. It wasn’t done before next feed or before other feeds on that day. After we watched our hungry baby skipping their feeds and crying, they ended up having TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) until the tube was reinserted the next day! Was the main indication for parenteral feed an unavailability of qualified staff to have nasogastric tube inserted?

Our post-op baby was having hyperbilirubinemia and was under blue lamp when one of surgeons approached us asking if we have any questions. When I asked about possible causes of high bilirubin levels and possibility of having it as a post-op complication the surgeon replied: This is not my domain, do you have any other questions? Really?! In my opinion, this is very poor.

After laryngoscopy our baby was diagnosed with unilateral vocal cord palsy and we were told by ENT (Ear Nose Throat) team our baby would have another laryngoscopy in two weeks time to see if it had improved.  The procedure was booked. However, two days before the procedure a guy from the ENT team told me the baby needs a laryngoplasty with hyaluronic acid as our baby has vocal cord palsy.  I told him that our baby needs to be reviewed before the procedure in case the cord is functioning. He told me it’s unlikely the issue has resolved and the decision for the procedure was made after speech pathologist assessment. There was no assessment whatsoever!  There were several babies with vocal cord issues on the ward and I was under the impression staff was taking shortcuts to reduce workload by booking them for the same procedure without proper assessment.

The procedure was booked and baby had pre-op anaesthesiology assessment done. I had been winging about the missing step and fortunately one of the ENT doctors decided to have the assessment done. After the assessment I was thanking the doctor for saving my baby from an unnecessary risky procedure as our baby's vocal cords were perfectly working! 

Complements to nursing staff.  We found nurses two nurses in particular really helpful even on shifts when they were not our allocated nurses.

Fantastic midwives!

I hope this info will help to improve the quality of the service .