Queen Mary Hospital Question URGENT question..

[kharel]

Hello,

I have just called Annerley midwives and they told me that at Queen Mary Hospital the labour and delivery ward are seperate and that men can not come into the laboru ward with you??? Does anyone know if this is true and if so how was your birth and what did you do?

Annerly offer a doular system where a midwife comes to your house and does the labour with you and then you go to hospital and deliver the baby.

I am terrified about beign in labour anyway and the only person I really want there is my husband??

Any advice would be welcome as I have no idea what to do and I am quite scared about this.....

 

[carang]

it is true. you go into the regular ward. and when you are "ready" they move you to the delivery ward. while in the regular ward, hubby is only allowed during visiting hours. however, you can leave the ward to walk around and many women do. they walk the halls with their hubbies.

i would venture to say that most women in hk deliver through the public system and it does work well, but some of their rules are a little strict. this is one of them.

 

[kharel]

What is the labour room like? Is it all open plan where you can see many other people? Can you walk the halls while you are in labour with your husband?

 

[rachrobin]

Hi,

I just did a tour of QMH last weekend - I'm due to deliver there in July.

Basically, it works like this;

1. You arrive and are assessed by the nurse midwife. Your husband waits in the waiting room. You may be given a bed in the 'pre labour' area - basically a waiting ward while they assign you a bed etc.

2. The next step depends on what stage of labour you are in. If you are 3-4cms with regular contractions, you are most likely put straight into a delivery room. This room is private (i.e. 1 bed) and this is where your baby will be born. You cannot see or hear anyone else in labour. Whilst you are in this room, your husband can be with you the whole time. There is a CD player, birthing ball, baby bed and birthing stool in the room.
If the delivery rooms are all full, they will make you wait a bit longer in the labour ward.

3.The labour ward is the general ward, where you are until you have progressed enough for the delivery room. There are 6-8 beds. This is the ward where you will also return to once you have had your baby. This area is off limits to the husband apart from visiting hours.

4. Your husband can visit the hospital at any time, provided he waits in the waiting room, and you must be able to walk outside the ward to meet him. Unfortunately you can't take the baby outside the ward, so your husband can only see the baby during visiting hours. This in my opinion is the only real drawback of the public system.

Annerley midwives will reccommend you stay at home as long as possible, thereby when you get to hospital you will go directly into a delivery room and bypass the ward. Having a doula at home will help you through the first stage of labour and they will know when you need to go to hospital.

I reccommend booking a tour of QMH, you can see everything for yourself and ask as many questions as you like. We felt much better having seen it all for ourselves.

Good Luck!

 

[shoni]

Just a quickie and not to worry anyone unduely, but...

A friend of mine recently gave birth in QM and had quite a horrific time.

You can hear other women delivering in other rooms, my friend could clearly hear another woman in labour in the room next to hers and after it had all gone silent she asked the nurse who just came into her room if she had had a girl or a boy. The answer was simply 'Still birth'. Not the most sensitive of nurses...

There were also lots of issues with visitors and such, her mum how had travelled from the US was not allowed in at all and spent 24 hours waiting in the waiting room only to be told that she couldn't even see the baby once born.

Then baby was kept in the neonatal unit for no reason for a week - honestly - baby was perfectly fine and healthy nothing wrong and mum and dad could only see baby during visiting hours.

Just to prepare you. Go armed with information and expect the worse, then hopfully you will get the best.

 

[bekyboo44]

Hi- I was recently in Queen Mary at 28 weeks with contractions.

My first son was born at Matilda, so this was my first experience of being an in patient at a government hospital.

I have to say I was very impressed with the level of medical care.

I was very fortunate in that I was in a delivery room the whole time...I suppose because I was an 'emergency' case and they were worried my baby was going to come very early......my husband was allowed in the room 24 hrs a day, day and night! They were strict about him wearing the surgical gown and hat etc, and wouldn't let him eat in there....but they let him come and go and bring me food etc.

Fortunetly with rest and medicine my contractions were stopped and our baby didn't com early.

However I was very impressed with the doctors and nurses.
And should I end up at QMH again, I have to say I wouldn't mind.

And at the end we were presented with a bill of $150!!!!!

 

[bekyboo44]

PS In the delivery rooms you can hear women in labour.....not very nice admitedly.....!

 

[cyberfish88]

I just gave birth at QMH 2 months ago and also had a fantastic experience. I was very impressed with everything, especially the treatment I got from the nurses/midwives. They followed my birth plan down to the last point.

I did not hear other women at all while i was in the labor ward. I just asked my husband if he heard others and he said yes but I was in no state to notice anybody else!

As mentioned above, your husband can be with you the whole time while you are in the labor ward. Its the pre-labor ward that he has to remain outside for. In my case, they put me in the pre-labor ward when I arrived since I was not dilated at all, but as soon as I went into active labor, I was moved and my husband joined me. BTW, only one person is allowed to be with you and they assume that is your husband.

As for visiting hours, when I was there there was only a 6-8pm visiting hour time which was a pain but I had 2 people visit me one night and 5 people the next with no problem at all. Also, when they first move you to the maternity ward after birth, your husband can go with you and they seem to let him stay for as long as we wanted.

Overall, it was a very positive experience and I would do it again!

 

[joyofliving]

I've written about my Queen Mary experience in a previous post. Would like to add the Doctors at Tsan Yuk or Queen Mary do not discuss your or your baby's condition with you unless you ask them. Even after asking, I found them very reluctant to share what was wrong with my daughter/ the swelling on her head and why she needed to be kept in Special Care Unit for a week. That left us wondering and worried sick the whole time. All they said was she had a bacterial infection. They kept her file under strict supervision and we were not even allowed to look into it. We did try sneaking into it when we thought no one was looking to know the name of the infection and reason for the swelling on her head but were reprimanded by the nurse there for doing that. I mean she?s my daughter and I have every right to know what's wrong with her, right????? Also they didn't give us any detail of her infection, what medicines they gave her the whole week, what tests they ran on her, what precautions we needed to take in future etc etc. All they said was she was alright now and we could take her home. Supposedly one has to submit a form/ fee or something to get full discharge summary which takes a few weeks.

 

[carang]

funny... i was hospitalised 13 times over 2 pregnancies, and i ALWAYS looked at my charts. never had a problem with drs or nurses saying i shouldn't.

i also asked hundreds of questions. at one point, the head of the high risk team took almost 45 minutes to answer my list of questions, which i wrote down and i also wrote down all of his answers... and that wasn't even when i was admitted, it was during a "check-up", which i had every 2 weeks during both pregnancies.