The maternity diaries: Must someone die?
Mothers tell of chaos at Hutt Valley Hospital as midwives cry for help.
Vulnerable mums share their stories
Facilities chronically under-resourced
‘‘During a vaginal procedure, there was insufficient lighting and they couldn’t even find a torch to help. My midwife ended up using her cellphone as a light.’’
‘‘The registrar never turned up for their shift . . . There was no-one senior enough on site. We were about to be rushed for a C-section and I could hear them panic about not having someone to check with.’’
‘‘Hutt Valley District Health Board is understaffed and put me and my baby at risk. They do not have the staff or resources to deliver babies safely. Please, do what you can to avoid any other woman ever experiencing what I did.’’
Patients falling through the cracks as staff overworked
‘‘I was asked to go in for observation after a fall at 37 weeks and one thing I noticed at the time was the nurse and midwives didn’t know where everything was.’’
‘‘For the rest of my three-day visit, I hardly saw any midwives or nurses bar a change of shift ... you felt forgotten about.’’
‘‘Upon reading my discharge paperwork, I remember seeing that they ticked the box re me being asked about domestic abuse. I was not asked once this question.’’
They spoke of exhausted midwives, of stressed mothers, and of babies at risk. They spoke of broken showers, unclean equipment, and of there not being enough basic tools such as stethoscopes.
And as they spoke, some were reduced to tears.
The descriptions of the Hutt Valley maternity service were delivered by midwives and mothers alike at a public meeting on Wednesday night, with one Hutt Valley DHB member labelling the situation a crisis.
Along with the sobering stories, midwives warned that chronic understaffing would only get worse over the coming months as they deal with what they say are unsafe conditions.
‘‘We’re taking on 69 women in the birthing unit in December, about 48 in January ... that’s up to five women a day that are going to birth and we haven’t got the midwives to look after them,’’ one staffer said.
‘‘It is unsafe and [the District Health Board] is ignoring us.’’
Another commented: ‘‘It’s lives we are talking about here’’.
The emotionally charged meeting in Petone was organised by beleaguered staff members after they were told not to speak to media in recent days.
Two mothers shared their birthing experiences at Hutt Hospital under the condition of anonymity.
One revealed there was insufficient light for a vaginal procedure to be carried out, forcing her midwife to use her cellphone as a light source.
The woman claimed a trainee who failed to carry out several procedures during the four-day ‘‘traumatic, risky birth’’ was given tuition in repairing high vaginal tears, despite complaining to the doctor about fatigue.
‘‘I could hear her say she was tired. That she couldn’t see. That her hands were tired. I couldn’t speak up. I lay there for more than an hour,’’ the woman said.
‘‘Hutt Valley DHB is understaffed and put me and my baby at risk. They do not have the staff or resources to deliver babies safely.’’
Crippled by under-resourcing, a hospital midwife told Wednesday’s meeting there were only four stethoscopes for two maternity wards.
She said an order for three more was declined by management – a cost she estimated would have been less than $120.
A mother who recently gave birth in the unit wanted to mop up some bodily fluid on the floor of her birthing suite, but was told to be careful because there was a ‘‘strict three-towel limit’’ in force for mothers.
Another said she was provided a birthing mat with blood on it from the previous patient, while yet another spoke of showers that didn’t work and a lack of staff.
Several mothers commented on the stress they felt inside the unit, with one describing the situation as ‘‘terrifying’’, with staff struggling to locate necessary equipment.
Prue Lamason was one of two Hutt Valley DHB board members at the meeting. On a recent tour of the maternity unit, Lamason said the upholstery on the chairs used by support people as being so worn ‘‘it looked somebody had chewed them’’, raising infection concerns.
‘‘There was a lack of equipment which just seemed to me to be absolutely mind-boggling. The bathrooms and toilets were simply not fit for purpose,’’ Lamason said.
Shortly after the tour, an independent review was carried out where the results ‘‘were horrible’’, prompting the formation of a steering group – ‘‘but the progress is slow.’’
The review, released in July, said maternity services there were ‘‘plagued by a chronic workforce deficiency’’ and recommended midwifery staffing levels were increased significantly.
Co-leader of midwives’ union MERAS Jill Ovens said successive speakers described the issues at Hutt maternity unit as a ‘‘systemic emergency’’.
In a Facebook post, Ovens pointed to a ‘‘severe shortage’’ of community midwives in the area with nine leaving in the past year, while four hospital midwives have also quit and will be ‘‘gone by Christmas’’.
Labour’s Hutt South MP Ginny Andersen, who organised the meeting, said maternity services in the region had been ‘‘underfunded for too long’’.
She planned to meet with Hutt Valley DHB chief executive Fionnagh Dougan on December 6, where she will make a direct request for urgent equipment funding.
‘‘I will continue to fight to ensure that women in the Hutt will get the services they need to give birth safely,’’ Andersen said.
Hutt Valley DHB had the highest rate of caesarean sections, at 41 per cent of births, and the ‘‘worst breast-feeding rates’’ in the country, Lamason said.
‘‘One of the policies we have [deals with] the first 1000 days [of a baby’s life], which is a fantastic policy. But I have to say, at the Hutt DHB, we can’t even get the first day right."
Lower Hutt Mayor Campbell Barry also attended the meeting. ‘‘The stories that I heard tonight are cause for alarm ... no-one should go through some of the things we heard tonight.’’