"My experience becoming a Mum"

Part 1: 

Below are a few points that I wanted to submit regarding my recent experience at the Karratha Health Campus:

We had originally planned to have our baby at a private hospital, however, due to a change of circumstances contributed to mainly by COVID-19 impacts and the subsequent maternity ward closure there, we opted to have our baby locally in Karratha instead. We made the above decision about 4 months in to the pregnancy and advised staff for the remainder of our antenatal visits with doctors and midwives that we wished to have the baby at Karratha and treated as private patients in order for us to utilise our private health cover, for the hospital to receive additional income and for us to get some level of benefit for our increased insurance costs over the last 2+ years.

While we understood that the benefits to us in being treated as private patients could be viewed as being small overall in terms of my partner's meals being partly provided for and a care hamper being provided upon discharge, the difference that these two things would have made to us during the time after having our baby, particularly given my partner only being permitted to visit during 'visiting hours' and the limited family and friend support locally available to us, would have been enormous. However, despite me mentioning this at every prenatal appointment, and a number of times when at KHC after having my baby, disappointingly we were still processed as ‘public’ patients with the additional benefits not provided.

We found that across all antenatal appointments, they were generally 20 minutes late at a minimum and were with different staff, with the exception being the doctor that I saw two or three times. This admittedly lead to levels of frustration while trying to juggle work commitments as the appointments running late could, and did, throw out on a number of occasions our trips in from where we live and didn’t allow for me to build up relationships with those staff I felt may be caring for me when on the maternity ward come the big day.

Our frustrations were particularly felt one day where we confirmed our ability to take a tour of the facility with maternity ward staff before heading in to town (following 6-7 previously unsuccessful attempts to line up a tour while my partner was not rostered on to undertake shift work). After an hour of waiting, we were told that a tour was no longer an option. Unfortunately, the flow on effect that this had for us, was sub-contractors assisting with our renovations being impacted by my partner being offsite unnecessarily for 4 hours, taking in to account travel time, the prenatal appointment my partner did not need to attend and the associated waiting times for both the prenatal appointment and the tour that didn’t eventuate;

While we understand and respect COVID-19 protocols, given our position and having no other little ones to care for at home, it would have been appreciated if the hospital could have given consideration for my partner to have been ‘locked in’ with me at the hospital for the duration of my stay rather than being limited to the visiting hours of 10am-12noon & 5pm-7pm. I’m aware that this alternative is the position that a number of hospitals in Perth chose to take, and is one that on the face of it, you would think would bring about a reduced risk and provide for us to capitalise on those ‘first moments’ as a family;

In line with medical advice I was induced 40w + 10d, however, I wasn’t aware that my induction would mean that I would require monitoring throughout my entire labour which would have an impact on my plans to use water (both bath and shower) as an effective analgesic tool. Only becoming aware of this while in labour significantly threw me out mentally, particularly when having asked to utilise the bath for a length of time while in pain, and being told after lengthy delays due to seeking permission from a more senior member of staff, that the bath was not an option available to me due to COVID (which I admittedly still don’t fully understand). If I had been made aware of this information before going into labour, mentally I feel that both my partner and I could have been better prepared.

Part 2:

As a first time mum, and after having been taken to theatre following the birth, I felt on occasion that I was not supported to the level that I’d hoped. Exaggerated no doubt by being in my room without my partner, my birth experience, being hooked up to a catheter and cannula upon my return from surgery, lack of sleep and having limited real-life experience in knowing how to care for a newborn.

This was particularly felt on my first night at KHC when, during the late hours, my baby decided it was time for their first poo. My baby was screaming. Aware of the feeling of dizziness that I’d experienced when showering a couple of hours earlier, still in a level of discomfort and not having my partner there with me, after trying to verbally calm my baby to no avail, I rung the bell for assistance. Nobody came.

I rung the bell again, and after what felt like a substantial amount of time, particularly with my baby now becoming quite distraught, still nobody arrived to help. With that, I rung the bell for a third time, and with no promise of help arriving anytime soon attempted to get up, change and settle my baby. There I was, in all my glory, leaking urine and blood, feeling dizzy and alone and my child figuratively and literally losing their s*** – safe to say that I can’t remember the last time I had felt that alone and useless.

I couldn’t help but have a wave of anger wash over me when the nurse arrived after I had finished changing my baby and explained that the reason for their delay was that they were required to help another patient. I admittedly couldn’t help but think that I too needed someone’s help when I was at my lowest of lows.

On the day of our checkout, we ended up leaving 7 hours after the time we expected which was from our understanding, due to limited nurse availability, conflicting meetings, required blood tests and an iron transfusion that had not yet been completed. Having indicated two days prior that we intended to check out on that day (a decision mainly contributed to by wanting to have our family unit together, plus my experience on the first night) we had expected that maybe this process wouldn’t have taken so long, and that at this stage all necessary paperwork and processes would have been completed. However when departing the hospital, we had still not received the paperwork necessary to lodge registration paperwork for my baby or apply for their birth certificate which subsequently flowed on to delays in receiving our parental leave payments from Centrelink and my employer, and ended up as yet another ‘thing’ to my ever growing ‘to do list’ after getting out of hospital.

At the 5 day post up check up (which was 20 minutes late to start), I met another new nurse, who I felt was friendly and bubbly, but once again, was someone new that I hadn’t had anything to do with previously from what I recall of my interactions at KHC. Casually they mentioned that they were returning from leave on that day and was only rostered to start at the time of our appointment. Which I understand was the reason for the appointment not starting on time. Furthermore, before we left, she mentioned that they had told a relative of mine, who also lives in the area, the news of us having our baby.

What the nurse probably didn’t realise is that this relative is not someone that I am in contact with. Safe to say, that I did not wish for this information to be shared with them by a third party and saw it as a breach of confidentiality. I do not want to make an official complaint regarding this, but hope that the need to confidentiality may be emphasised in any staff training to avoid the same thing happening to someone else.

While I’m not aware that it happened in my circumstance, the breach of confidentiality could have lead to other family members that I am in regular contact with hearing the news of our new addition from this relative, or whomever else they may have decided to tell.

Overall I feel that KHC is a great modern facility, everyone that I had dealings with were friendly and I never doubted that I would receive proper treatment for any serious medical conditions that arose during my stay. 

From a patients perspective however, I felt that potentially staffing was not adequate to produce the standard of care that was expected by me being a first time mum. For example, one that focused not only on what needed to be done from a basic medical sense, but also offered additional support to make sure things ran as smoothly as possible from a process/timeline point of view as well as ensuring there was sufficient time to support and educate patients that, like us, are trying to navigate their way through the early days of parenthood away from their family and friends.

I appreciate that the above is a lot of information, and in a way, it has been somewhat therapeutic for me to put it ‘down on paper’. Regardless, what is done with this information is now out of my hands, I just hope that by offering up an insight from my recent experience, it helps those working at the hospital to see things from a different point of view and potentially make changes to improve the experience of others moving forward.