Miscarriage

[Eclair]

I'm interested to see what people think of this. The woman was 10 weeks pregnant;
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http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8210969/woman-files-complaint-after-miscarriage

A pregnant woman waited over 20 hours at a public hospital in Western Sydney only to end up having a miscarriage by herself.

Heather Green was 10 weeks into her pregnancy when she decided to check herself into Blacktown Hospital after no heartbeat was detected on her unborn baby, Nine News reports.

Mrs Green, who had suffered a miscarriage before, said she didn't want to go through it at home and wanted the foetus to be surgically removed.

Have you been poorly treated in hospital? Send us your story in an email here.

"Having been through a miscarriage before I didn't want to experience that again," she told Nine News in an exclusive interview.

The 31-year-old mother-of-two arrived at the hospital on a Tuesday night at 6pm suffering severe cramps but was not seen by a doctor until 11.30pm.

She was about to be admitted to surgery but was instead sent home at 4am because of a problem with the hospital computer system.

She returned to the hospital in the morning and at 2.30pm was about to go into surgery when she was then told that the operating theatre wasn't ready for her procedure.

Mrs Green was taken to a room to wait and began to miscarry nearly 20 hours after she first arrived at the hospital.

"I started screaming out help, I need some help ... Is somebody there? It would've been a good two minutes [that] I was yelling. I was shaking — I'm shaking now just thinking about it," Mrs Green said.

"For me to have to get off the bed and find a doctor ... It's like a nightmare."

Heather's husband Ben Green was powerless to help.

"I really feel like they forgot about us, there's no other way someone would go through that," he said.

Mrs Green has filed a formal complaint over the incident.

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[P7PSP]

That is awful. It really sucks, it sounds like more than one person failed to do their job properly.

[bodie]

read it twice just to make sure i am not being too harsh...but i think she is being a bit of a drama queen!

they can give you an abortion pill upto 14 weeks (i think) and you go home, take tablet, a few painkillers, and then
abort the feotus which is about 3cm long.  

i have never had one of these but have had a miscarriage.  Sure these things aren't nice but i think she is playing
on it a little for the purpose of her law suit -  which is fair enough.

it says she was screaming,  well... i can only assume something else was wrong with her at the time.  screaming is
a bit over the top for a miscarriage at 10 weeks.  IMO

also, the fact that she was 'able' to get up and go find a doctor...nah a bit OTT.  i don't buy it.

Of course, the fact remains however she was left to wait for an unacceptable amount of time,  and hospitals shouldn't treat anyone
this way.  they do, of course, everywhere, and are liable to be sued.  I don't really blame the woman for her lawsuit,  fair play to her, hope she wins
but i don't personally think it was as bad as she makes out.

did it say her occupation??  wonder if she was an actress

[Eclair]

read it twice just to make sure i am not being too harsh...but i think she is being a bit of a drama queen!

they can give you an abortion pill upto 14 weeks (i think) and you go home, take tablet, a few painkillers, and then
abort the feotus which is about 3cm long.  

i have never had one of these but have had a miscarriage.  Sure these things aren't nice but i think she is playing
on it a little for the purpose of her law suit -  which is fair enough.

it says she was screaming,  well... i can only assume something else was wrong with her at the time.  screaming is
a bit over the top for a miscarriage at 10 weeks.  IMO

also, the fact that she was 'able' to get up and go find a doctor...nah a bit OTT.  i don't buy it.

Of course, the fact remains however she was left to wait for an unacceptable amount of time,  and hospitals shouldn't treat anyone
this way.  they do, of course, everywhere, and are liable to be sued.  I don't really blame the woman for her lawsuit,  fair play to her, hope she wins
but i don't personally think it was as bad as she makes out.

did it say her occupation??  wonder if she was an actress

Thank you. I thought it was just me being harsh (or maybe we are both harsh? )

I miscarried at a similar length of pregnancy and went to my GP (who had treated me for years and was wonderful). It had been a difficult pregnancy already, so the miscarriage wasn't unexpected, I'd been through scans and they did believe the embryo would fail to thrive.

Anyways, the pain was awful before I actually lost the baby, like you, my doctor gave me painkillers and said there was nothing they could do, but I probably would miscarry. We were on our way to holidays, but he encouraged us to go, because there was a hospital close by should things seem abnormal.

There is nothing they can do. In fact, what if they had removed the feotus before she miscarried? Would she then sue the hospital for somehow intervening when the child may have survived?

As it was, I miscarried when we were on holidays and when we returned, my doctor wanted me to go to the hospital to have surgery to make sure everything was removed. I was dripped up for nearly 48 hours before the theatre was ready, but I was in a ward overnight. It was a long wait, but I understood that there were unexpected crash victims and all sorts getting surgery and that if I was monitored for infection, then I'd be OK.

I think the wait is unacceptable, but I'd rather wait and have emergency surgeries take place.

That's why I wondered if it was just me who thought she over reacted.

[Al Swearegen]

I have of course never had a miscarriage but I have a fear of hospitals. I will agree to anything reasonable or not in order to get away from it. After the heart attack and after the car crashes, as soon as I could go and after much badgering I was gone. Proved a little too early in the case of my heart attack. It was the day before I checked myself out. But live and learn......maybe.

[Eclair]

I have of course never had a miscarriage but I have a fear of hospitals. I will agree to anything reasonable or not in order to get away from it. After the heart attack and after the car crashes, as soon as I could go and after much badgering I was gone. Proved a little too early in the case of my heart attack. It was the day before I checked myself out. But live and learn......maybe.

I am OK with hospitals...to a point.

[bodie]

No i agree entirely.  I think any woman who has had this happen will clock that she is 'putting it on a bit' - and hey i don't really
blame her.  I personally try not to make much fuss about pain.

The worst, and i mean the worst pain in miscarriage is the emotional/psychological/guilt and no emergency surgery can take it away
and my heart goes out to anyone that has experienced it.  

It would be different if she was having cramps and the baby was still alive?  then yeah sure, that woman should be first to be seen to.
Sadly it wasn't the case.  Removal of a dead feotus, however harsh it sounds, is just NOT a medical emergency.

[bodie]

I have of course never had a miscarriage but I have a fear of hospitals. I will agree to anything reasonable or not in order to get away from it. After the heart attack and after the car crashes, as soon as I could go and after much badgering I was gone. Proved a little too early in the case of my heart attack. It was the day before I checked myself out. But live and learn......maybe.

i hate hospitals too and avoid them, even as a visitor.  they are big vile places full of yukky smells and sick people.  urgghhh.  much better to stay home and paint a cross on your front door

[Enos]

I have of course never had a miscarriage but I have a fear of hospitals. I will agree to anything reasonable or not in order to get away from it. After the heart attack and after the car crashes, as soon as I could go and after much badgering I was gone. Proved a little too early in the case of my heart attack. It was the day before I checked myself out. But live and learn......maybe.

i hate hospitals too and avoid them, even as a visitor.  they are big vile places full of yukky smells and sick people.  urgghhh.  much better to stay home and paint a cross on your front door

I must be weird because I like hospitals. When I was 7 and stayed in hospital over night with a broken arm I loved it there, and cried my eyes out all day when I had to go home, I had also planned to go on a teddy bear's picnic with the other kids on the ward, but my plans were DASHED 

["couldbecousin"]

I have of course never had a miscarriage but I have a fear of hospitals. I will agree to anything reasonable or not in order to get away from it. After the heart attack and after the car crashes, as soon as I could go and after much badgering I was gone. Proved a little too early in the case of my heart attack. It was the day before I checked myself out. But live and learn......maybe.

i hate hospitals too and avoid them, even as a visitor.  they are big vile places full of yukky smells and sick people.  urgghhh.  much better to stay home and paint a cross on your front door

I must be weird because I like hospitals. When I was 7 and stayed in hospital over night with a broken arm I loved it there, and cried my eyes out all day when I had to go home, I had also planned to go on a teddy bear's picnic with the other kids on the ward, but my plans were DASHED 

Awww, they must have taken good care of you there, sorry to hear about the picnic you missed. 

[Enos]

I have of course never had a miscarriage but I have a fear of hospitals. I will agree to anything reasonable or not in order to get away from it. After the heart attack and after the car crashes, as soon as I could go and after much badgering I was gone. Proved a little too early in the case of my heart attack. It was the day before I checked myself out. But live and learn......maybe.

i hate hospitals too and avoid them, even as a visitor.  they are big vile places full of yukky smells and sick people.  urgghhh.  much better to stay home and paint a cross on your front door

I must be weird because I like hospitals. When I was 7 and stayed in hospital over night with a broken arm I loved it there, and cried my eyes out all day when I had to go home, I had also planned to go on a teddy bear's picnic with the other kids on the ward, but my plans were DASHED 

Awww, they must have taken good care of you there, sorry to hear about the picnic you missed. 

They probably did, I don't remember how good the staff were. I do remember being awake most of the night because this boy of about 12 who had broken both his arms was itchy and could do nothing about it, so he was screaming and shouting for the nurse to help him out, and the nurse was getting pretty annoyed and told him there's not much she can do and he'll have to let it pass. Poor guy 

[Icequeen]

Before they delivered my son I listened to the woman in the next room scream all night while in labor.  The husband was furious because she kept saying something was wrong and they didn't check her out (it was her first) the baby died during delivery.

While my son was in the NICU unit the waiting area just happened to be across from on of the staff lounges. We got to listen to them laughing about another woman who kept "whining" saying she didn't feel right and they kept telling her she was "just fine" until she became unresponsive and slipped into cardiac arrest.

I went in to spend time with my son one morning only to find him in a baking hot incubator, after I alerted someone I found out an "aid" had mistakenly grabbed one with a broken thermostat and transfered him into it shortly before I arrived (it was tagged malfunctioning with a bright orange tag on the back).

Do I have a fear of hospitals? You betcha.

[Natalia Evans]

I've had a miscarriage but it was a missed one. I had to get my uterus cleaned out. They didn't even knock me out when they did it so I was in pain and it hurt very bad and it was the worst pain ever. I got told labor is worse and now I know what it feels like. Well I went into labor and it was fine. It wasn't even like the pain I experienced and it wasn't as bad. I had an epidural of course because I didn't want to deal with intense pain again. Of course this was at a health clinic when I had my uterus cleaned out. It was a scheduled appointment we had set up.

I can't believe how unprofessional doctors and nurses can be, especially talking bad about their patients and making fun of them behind their backs. I wouldn't even do it at work where patients can over hear because then they will wonder if they talk bad about them when they are gone and no one should feel ashamed or embarrassed to go in for their problems and fear they will be laughed at by the professionals. My mom talks bad about her patients too but she does it at home or when she isn't at work. She tells us how stupid some people are and how they had to go in. She has told me what stupid things mothers do to their babies or during pregnancy. She isn't really making fun of them, she is just telling me what patients she has had and how stupid some people are. But she does not say who they were because it be illegal if she did. We have a law here that protects patients. And I do enjoy hearing stories about her patients because they are interesting and they shock me about what people can do. Do they make me un comfortable? No. She knows the difference between stupid stuff and ignorant stuff people do. She understands questions first time moms ask and she doesn't view them as stupid for it. Same as when they don't think their baby is moving, they go in and mom feels and tells them she felt their baby kick and the mother usually goes "Oh that's my baby? I thought it was gas?" But first she tells  first to have a drink and then something to eat and then go lie down for twenty minutes and if they don't feel their baby move, call her back. Then she tells them to come in.

[Eclair]

Wow Kit, I am sorry they did that to you with no anaesthetic. That seems odd and cruel really.

Yes, it's just professional not to talk about patients like that in the workplace, it starts a bad culture and attitude, for a start. It's like bitching about customers within earshot....but what is worse, there can be lives on the line.

I often think they make people they class as 'whingers' to wait longer in the hopes the patient will give up and go home.

Icequeen - yes, I would have a fear if that had happened to a child of mine. I've been lucky mostly with hospitals. If the incubator incident had happened, then yes, I would likely make a complaint.

The only thing is, often we are vulnerable whether as a patient or loved one that we are worried about. I suppose given the story above, they get their fair share of whingers and things...I'm not saying it's not a tough job. But I do still think the story above is kind of why sometimes staff get sick of moaners and complainers.

[Peter]

I have of course never had a miscarriage but I have a fear of hospitals. I will agree to anything reasonable or not in order to get away from it. After the heart attack and after the car crashes, as soon as I could go and after much badgering I was gone. Proved a little too early in the case of my heart attack. It was the day before I checked myself out. But live and learn......maybe.

i hate hospitals too and avoid them, even as a visitor.  they are big vile places full of yukky smells and sick people.  urgghhh.  much better to stay home and paint a cross on your front door

I must be weird because I like hospitals. When I was 7 and stayed in hospital over night with a broken arm I loved it there, and cried my eyes out all day when I had to go home, I had also planned to go on a teddy bear's picnic with the other kids on the ward, but my plans were DASHED 

I had a pleasant stay at hospital this week when I was having a video-EEG sleep study done.  I had my own room and bathroom, it was clean, there were no nasty smells, the staff were very nice to me, the food was surprisingly good and there was plenty of it, I had a good view from the window and I was able to plug in my laptop.  The nurses started constantly checking on me and asking if I was ok after the EEG detected that I was having seizures, and it's the first time I've felt like I've really been taken seriously by medical professionals, and not viewed as a hypochondriac.