Placed in maternity ward after surgery ~ any thoughts?

I wrote a letter to my hospital, and got a phone call the other day from a nurse. She seemed frustrated that I could tell them that it was hurtful to be placed in this ward. No woman should have to make the choice to leave early because of something like this. I will write them again, and again. Nearly 600,000 women have this done every year, and hospitals make a ton of money on this, so there has to be a way to protect the sanity of women who have to go through this by placing them in a place where they can recover in peace.

Ladies thanks for talking about this with me. I needed to hear your voices.

I to was on the Maternity floor.

It was hard to sleep for me with the little babies crying. But I think it was far worse for the lady in my room. We had semi private but omg ... it was so sad for her. She was in her 50's and she had no children of her own. She had a terrific husband who had children from a prior marriage and I believe they adopted but I felt sorry for her.

It was kind of ironic the room I recovered in from having my second child 6 years prior was right beside the room I was in for my TAH. So walking past made me happy and sad if you can understand that.

My Dr. Said there were no beds available.

Jo

"no beds available" - I think that is a lie, I really do. I'd be tempted to call the chairman's office and ask to see the admissions and occupancy reports for those days. I think it is easier for the hospital and doctors to lump all their gyno patients together.

If there really aren't any beds available, what do they do with the male prostrate surgery patients? I've never seen a man stuck in maternity.

I was in the Pediaric ward... Can you believe that!!! I had somewhat of the same issues about hearing the little babies cry. There was a little boy around two accross the hall and he keep crying for his Mama all night one night. It broke my heart to hear it he sounded like my little boy. Why on earth would you put someone who just lost all chances to have children or anymore children on a Freaking Pediatric or Maternity ward!! I feel your aggravation I just wanted you know I do.

TAH, kept ovaries, 10/19/2009

My husband is an RN in a large hospital who works on the mom/baby unit. He does post-partem recovery and antepartum. He has worked with hysterectomy patients on the antepartum wing, but they do not admit them on the post-partum floor, and it works out well. I agree it's insensitive to put any one on the post-partum floor who's had a hysterectomy. So sorry you had to go through that!

I was on admitted on the med/surg unit (not my husband's hospital). I hated it. Like another commenter noted, they didn't seem to know what to do with me, and I had to wait forever for help. They insisted on measuring my urine out-put and made me pee in "the hat"...the thing that catches the urine. Since I had a room-mate who also used the toilet, the nurses would empty it and put it on the floor where I could not reach it. I flat-out refused to pee in the hat any more after I had to wait and wait for them to come put it on the toilet for me one too many times.

I was across the hall from isolation "contact precaution" rooms where the patients had c-diff or MRSA infections. The day after my procedure I went to the bathroom for the first time and refused to use it until it was cleaned, it was dirty and filmy, it hadn't been cleaned since my first room-mate had been discharged the day before. My next room-mate was a nice lady who developed an infection in her hand that had been operated on. They told her they weren't dressing the open wound because they wanted it to dry out. In the meantime, she would walk around the room and touch everything and use the bathroom. The next day they told her she had a staph infection! I was so paranoid, constantly washing my hands and using hand sanitizer. My husband tells me that the med/surg patients are genreally a much sicker population than mom/baby patients...they are generally a much healthier population.

There has to be a better solution for healthy people that have had routine surgery than to put them around people with infections. Where?...I don't know, but there has to be a better CLEANER place.

I was on the surgical floor right after my surgery. There was one male nurse who I hated. He always came in and hassled my company and if he saw them before they got to my room he would tell them to go away because I didn't want visitors. At the hospital where I was, it was private rooms and visitors could order food and have it delivered to my room so they could eat with me. My parents did this and that nurse told them they better not be eating my food. I was still out of it and couldn't handle him so my mom *****ed him out and told my doctor. Then my DH told him he better not meet up with him in the parking lot sometime because he'd take care of his attitude there. LOL After they all complained to my doctor the doctor had me moved to the maternity floor. I got better care there and the nurses were considerate of how I was feeling. I was put in a private room at the end of the hall and the only one close to me was a woman who had lost her child in childbirth so I didn't have to see any of the babies, but it was still hard for me. I went home the next day because I begged to be let out of there. I was back the next day with a collapsed lung tho. :/

The doctor told me at my post op that the male nurse was fired because I was not the only one who complained and he was on probation already. My complaint just finished him off. So I would advise anyone to complain because even if the hospital doesn't fix it then your complaint might end up helping someone else later.

I'm sorry. I have a child with a primary immune deficiency who is almost always put on the surgical floor because it is cleaner than the pediatrics floor. He got his first staph infection in the maternity floor. Maternity floors have constant visitors and are notorious for harboring colds, flus etc because the population comes in when they have to, not like surgical patients who need to be healthy before their scheduled surgeries. I was also well taken care of on the surgical floor for all of my surgeries.

I was the ONLY one on the surgical floor- which I thought would be nice, but for "convenience sake" they put me in a room right by the nurse's station.
Not only did I hear the nurses talk about other patients, but one nurse, inparticular was talking about ME!
I have fibromyalgia and she did too, but apparently she was the Queen of handling pain- she said I should be able to handle the pain with ibuprofen and I was "one of those seeking attention". This was AFTER she came in my room and made snarky comments about my potato chips that hubby brought in (I was dying for some, funny thing is, I don't normally eat them).
It wasn't my doc's regular hospital, so every fau there was a different doc looking in on me and that was it.

All in all, the nurses were wonderful, especially the night ones! They came in and really explained everything, walked with me, and gave back massages, because I was spasming...and I did let the hospital know.

Being on the maternity floor- that's just not fair! I heard a baby crying from a visitor down the hall, and it hurt me- and I am OVER having kids. I could only imagine how hard that would be for those that never did have kids.
We should band together and write, write, write!

	Quote:
Originally Posted by *MonCherie* I was the ONLY one on the surgical floor- which I thought would be nice, but for "convenience sake" they put me in a room right by the nurse's station. Not only did I hear the nurses talk about other patients, but one nurse, inparticular was talking about ME! I have fibromyalgia and she did too, but apparently she was the Queen of handling pain- she said I should be able to handle the pain with ibuprofen and I was "one of those seeking attention". This was AFTER she came in my room and made snarky comments about my potato chips that hubby brought in (I was dying for some, funny thing is, I don't normally eat them). It wasn't my doc's regular hospital, so every fau there was a different doc looking in on me and that was it. All in all, the nurses were wonderful, especially the night ones! They came in and really explained everything, walked with me, and gave back massages, because I was spasming...and I did let the hospital know. Being on the maternity floor- that's just not fair! I heard a baby crying from a visitor down the hall, and it hurt me- and I am OVER having kids. I could only imagine how hard that would be for those that never did have kids. We should band together and write, write, write!

MonCherie,

I agree, I have started writing letters to people, like Women's Day magazine and stuff like that. By my estimates, nearly 7 to 15 thousand are spent per procedure, with close to 6 hundred thousand procedure done every year, meaning that roughly 4.2 to 9 billion dollars are spent on this per year. Unless they hear from us loud and clear, I doubt this will change.

	Quote:
Originally Posted by sharpie I'm sorry. I have a child with a primary immune deficiency who is almost always put on the surgical floor because it is cleaner than the pediatrics floor. He got his first staph infection in the maternity floor. Maternity floors have constant visitors and are notorious for harboring colds, flus etc because the population comes in when they have to, not like surgical patients who need to be healthy before their scheduled surgeries. I was also well taken care of on the surgical floor for all of my surgeries.

So then he's been on a surgical unit? Is that different than med/surg? Like I said in my previous post, I was on med/surg across the hall from isolation patients (c-diff and MRSA), there were some very sick people there, not just healthy surgical patients...and my roomate had on open staph infection on her hand (they wanted to keep it exposed to the air) and we shared a bathroom. I was silently freaking out, like when she came over to talk to me and was touching my bedrail with both hands! The three days I was there, the bathroom was cleaned twice (both times at my insistence) and the dirty floor was not mopped once. All housekeeping did was dust with a fuzzy duster and swept the floor, did not wipe anything down with disinfectants...not once in three days. I work in a very clean nursing home (I know, that's a surprise, they're usually not) and I'm familiar with how it's supposed to be done. This was a surprise, as this hospital has a good reputation in the community. I look forward to getting the survey form in the mail.