Care Opinion

Problems caused by lack of Wheelchairs

Posted By Teapotter

"Problems caused by lack of Wheelchairs"

About: University Hospital Wishaw / Maternity Care (Wards 21-24)

(as a service user),

Hi 

I had a baby in NICU in Wishaw General Hospital for 5 weeks. We had excellent care and were well looked after.

The one issue I had was with wheelchairs. I was in the postnatal ward recovering from an emergency operation, and my baby was in intensive care. Due to the nature of my operation I couldn't always walk from one to another, so my husband or a nurse would take me to see my baby. However, during visiting hours it was very difficult to find a wheelchair. More than once I had family visiting from hundreds of miles away, and I couldn't take them to see the baby. On one occasion my mum and mother-in-law almost carried me down the corridor so that we could visit my daughter. Grandparents were not allowed to visit NICU without me, and they had already spent much of the visiting hour searching the hospital for wheelchairs. We did speak to the nurses and midwives but they just suggested walking the corridors looking for one. 

In the week or so when I struggled to walk, my husband became an expert at sourcing wheelchairs from random parts of the hospital. However, at visiting times it was still difficult. I would like to see more wheelchairs available so that no-one else has to struggle with not being able to visit their baby.

Thanks.

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Responses

Response from Amanda Kennett, Senior Midwife for Inpatients, University Hospital Wishaw, NHS Lanarkshire 7 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Amanda Kennett
Senior Midwife for Inpatients, University Hospital Wishaw,
NHS Lanarkshire

Submitted on 28/11/2017 at 15:12
Published on Care Opinion at 15:28

picture of Amanda Kennett

Dear Teapotter

Thank you so much for your feedback. I was sorry to hear about your experiences of trying to find a wheelchair and how this delayed you being able to visit your baby in NICU. This is certainly an issue that I will follow up to try and avoid the same happening to other mothers.

I hope you and your baby are both doing well and that your are enjoying having her home after 5 weeks of being in hospital.

Kind Regards

Amanda

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Response from Amanda Kennett, Senior Midwife for Inpatients, University Hospital Wishaw, NHS Lanarkshire 5 years ago
We have made a change
Amanda Kennett
Senior Midwife for Inpatients, University Hospital Wishaw,
NHS Lanarkshire

Submitted on 03/01/2019 at 11:13
Published on Care Opinion at 11:33

picture of Amanda Kennett

Dear Teapotter

After you had highlighted the issue with lack of availability with wheelchairs and how this impacted on your ability to visit your baby I discussed this issue with ward staff and with the portering service within the hospital. We cannot store wheelchairs within the ward areas as they are a resource for the whole hospital but I did ask the portering staff if a number of wheelchairs could be made available in the maternity corridor on a daily basis for use by maternity patients. Staff have also rung directly to portering staff when a chair is not readily available and chairs have been brought along to the wards for women to use.

These actions do seem to have addressed the issue of lack of availability of wheelchairs for maternity. Thank you again for your comments as they really helped us to make an improvement.

Kind Regards

Amanda

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