Hospital 'too busy' to deliver baby

A couple told today how they were forced to deliver their baby at home without medical assistance, because a hospital was "too busy" to help.

Sally Earnshaw and her fiance Matthew Cox are among a flood of readers to come forward with their own stories of NHS maternity units after reading in the Standard last week about the appalling experience of journalist Christina Odone at the Chelsea and Westminster.

Miss Earnshaw said she called midwives from Watford General Hospital repeatedly over nine hours to say her labour was well advanced but was twice told that she should merely take paracetamol.

Even when she called the birthing unit in distress to say her waters had broken and baby James was about to arrive, staff refused to believe her. One midwife told her she "should have read the books more carefully".

Miss Earnshaw, 26, a restaurant manager from Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, said: "We would have just jumped in the car and driven over there, but it was made pretty plain that if we did there would be no bed for me, and the midwife was assuring me I wasn't as far into labour as I thought.

"We even considered driving to a different hospital, but there was nowhere else within reach.

"I was treated with utter contempt by the hospital. I was very worried because my fouryearold daughter, Mya, has serious learning difficulties, and there are concerns that these may have been caused during pregnancy or birth.

"Because of that, my pregnancy had been monitored more closely than usual and I expected the birth to be, too. But it was a fiasco."

The nightmare began when Miss Earnshaw's labour started at 3am on 15 May. Six hours later she made her first call to the hospital's maternity unit to say the baby was on its way and got the advice to take paracetamol - and have a bath.

Eight hours later her waters broke. But she was told by a midwife that with three women in labour they were "too busy" to deal with her, and that her waters hadn't broken at all. Mr Cox eventually called 999, and half an hour later - after four calls within nine hours to Watford General - James was born.

Mr Cox, 27, who runs beauty salons, said: "It was terrifying. I had no idea what to do, but thankfully the cord wasn't around his neck and everything seemed okay. Initially we were just relieved he was healthy, but after a while we began to think about all of the 'what ifs'."

Miss Earnshaw added: "The hospital's treatment was disgusting. Not only did they fail to provide adequate care, they actually told me off for bothering them."

Watford General's maternity unit is currently the subject of an internal investigation into standards of care. In August last year two midwives were suspended when a premature baby died after being born in the lavatories.

And in April a new mother attacked the hygiene standards on Katharine Ward, claiming to have encountered cockroaches, overflowing lavatories, and dirty dressings on a bathroom floor which was splattered with blood and urine.

A spokesman for West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Watford General, said: "A review of maternity services is ongoing. It would be inappropriate to comment on Miss Earnshaw's case as the trust has now received a formal complaint and her concerns are being investigated.

"Recently, £50,000 has been spent upgrading Katharine Ward. A ward housekeeper has been appointed and works closely with the ward manager and our cleaners to ensure a high quality of cleanliness."