My experience at the city hospital

Dear ladies

It took me a while to post this but i felt i should share my experience with you.

I had my first baby with dr janaki at welcare hospital and everything went very smooth. For my second one i decided to go with city hospital. I was with dr britt but she had to leave so i got transferred to Dr. Debb. I was meant to be induced on 2 july 2013 and was asked to come at midnight for the purpose of insurance etc by the doctor. I dint really want that date but had no choice. Anyhow on 1 st night i started getting small contractions so went to the hospital around 1 am( 2nd morning). The mid wife checked me and asked me to stay for the night. At 9am on 2nd morning the doctor came to check me and i was 1cm dilated. Now the doctor is well aware how sensitive i am to pain and you can say my threshold to pain is zero. If anyone pinches me i get a bruise and to date i am scared of blood test. For the 1st one also i had natural delivery and when i was only 2 cm dilated i asked for epidural. I guess this gives you an idea how i am towards pain.

Doctor asked me to go back and come back at night. I reached home at 11am and was having small contractions. Around 130 pm contrcations were getting strong so i called the doctor who advised me to take 2 panadol and sit in the bath tub. She was still talking about insurance and asked me to come in if it gets really bad. At 2 pm i did as i was advised and after 15 minutes the contactions became extremely bad. Luckily my nanny was with me who called DH and he drove quite fast. By the time DH came home i was in a bad state and hanging on to the railing in my bathroom. he could see mucus coming out which was the size of a tennis ball. He put me in bed and called emergency.
The emergency team was quite fast and came in 10 minuted luckily. I have to admit rashid hospital is brilliant as they came very fast. They also have maternity ward and nurses were in 15 minutes after.

We live in a villa and everyone was scared to take me in stretcher through our staircase in the event contraction comes as i was pushing quite hard. The nurses at that point felt that there was no time and baby had to be delivered home. They saw a contraction coming and water broke and in one push the baby came out. It all happened very fast as by 330 pm i had delivered.Thereafter i was taken to city hospital. The stress we all went through is unimaginable. I am just grateful that the emergency team was quick enough to come. The funny bit to the story is that i kept asking for epidural and kept getting assured its coming and to make me feel better they gave me sugar injection so that i think its some sort of a pain killer :-).

Upon reaching the hospital the midwife checked me and said there was a very slight tear and only one or two stiches were required. The doc came to check me and gave me lots of stiches.
Apart from the delivery trauma then came the service bit.

It was my first experience with city and i was extremely hungry as had not eaten all day and requested for a club sandwitch, however it never came and 2 hours after dinner came and when i asked for the sandwitch i got told it will be charged. At that point of time i was losing it and really dint care about getting charged as all i wanted was to eat club sandwitch. Anyhow it never arrived. I stayed in the hospital for two nights and it was just not a pleasant experience. Maybe the timing was bad as they were short of staff and it would take 30 mins everytime for a nurse to come whenever i needed them.

Then came the bill. DH luckily checked the bill and saw that city actually charged us for delivery which never took place there. DH was already annoyed as not only was my life and baby life put to risk but now we were also being charged. This was ofcourse removed by the end.

Overall my experience with city was very sour.

Now i understand that in europe and uk it is common to send one back home and ask to come back to hospital when one is 7cm dilated. I may be wrong so dont quote me please. However, when i am due to be induced the same day then why even send me back and it all had to be worked as per doctors schedule and agenda. Also, knowing that i cant manage pain yet i was asked to go back.
Many otherthings happened at city which i was not pleased about.

Anyhow i never thought i could get through this but i guess our bodies are meant to take any kind of pain and i never thought i could survive this without an epidural. Its a story i will remember always and felt i should share with everone, tried to make it as short as possible :-)