I recently delivered my baby at the Kununurra District Hospital about a month ago and I have a few compliments, however I also have a number of complaints regarding the care and service we received.
Firstly this delivery was my third child and having given birth previously under private care I was extremely nervous and had quite a lot of anxiety about giving birth in the public system, however, I cannot fault the hospital and staffing team that were involved in the birth of my daughter. From the anaesthetist who did my epidural, to the midwives who cared for me the whole time during labour and the obstetrician were, I felt, incredible. I was made to feel so at ease and had a fantastic birth.
I would like to specially mention my midwife who came across to our town for my antenatal visits. In my opinion, they are so caring and incredible at what they do.
However, the after care from the day after the birth was, in my opinion, somewhat non-existent due to, I believe, no fault of the midwife. Both myself and my partner wanted to leave and this had been okayed by the OB who had finished the necessary checks on my baby for us to leave that morning. However, my baby needed one injection and their O2 sats done before we could leave. The midwife on duty was stuck in the labour suite in a delivery and was not able to check in on myself or my baby during the entire shift.
The midwife manager checked in with us in the early afternoon to tell me that we were probably not going to be seen for more than an hour because they had patients. Living in a regional town this posed a problem as we were then going to have to drive back in the dark with a newborn which did not sit right with me. I got upset and emotional as we had already been waiting since the morning to leave and we had 2 other small children waiting for us at home. The midwife manager then came back several minutes later as their patient was late and then did my baby's injection and sats so we could leave.
If I had been a first time mum and not had the support/attention needed after the birth I believe it would have been extremely confronting and overwhelming.
My last and final issue is that to the day of writing this story, almost a month later, I am still waiting for my centrelink paperwork which the hospital advised me at the birth they had run out of but had been ordered already and would be here any day now and it still has not arrived. I have been receiving multiple phone calls a week since the day of my baby's birth for my baby's paperwork to be finished in order for my maternity pay claim to be finalised. I have been told twice that the paperwork had arrived, however when I drove in from our town to collect there had been some confusion and the packs had not arrived yet.
I fail to see how a maternity ward in a hospital runs out of the necessary paperwork for birth registrations / centrelink paperwork. It has been a massive inconvenience for myself both driving in twice to collect paperwork that was not there and my claim being cancelled by centrelink and having to resubmit when the hospital receives the paperwork.
"Maternity care"
About: Kununurra Hospital / Maternity Ward Kununurra Hospital Maternity Ward Kununurra 6743
Posted by paprikayz54 (as ),
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