Maternity care

Poor standards in maternity care popped up in the news. Now normally I don't relate personal details regarding others however this story made their local paper and was fed to a national (only a page 13 4inch type of thing) so it's all public and I've mentioned it elsewhere so...

Just over a year ago my cousin and his wife were expecting their, and her, first child. She was overdue by a couple of weeks when she thought she was going into labour; my cousin duly grabbed the bags, they piled into the car and drove to the hospital. It's some distance and takes about an hour. They got there, the nurses or doctors looked at her and said "Nope not yet, go back home". They drove back, got into the house and she promptly started to go into labour. One emergency phone call later and the ambulance was on it's way and local mid-wives alerted. The mid-wives arrived first, they were local and the one ambulance that served that area was elsewhere so they'd had to call in the other district's.

The good news is everything went fine although the horns were a big shock.

So to reiterate; a hour's travel time to the hospital, a first-time mother, and an overdue baby. They sent them home! As far as I know they received no form of apology from the hospital.

The NHS - when it's good it's very good, when it's bad it's horrid.