South Yorkshire mum left feeling 'exposed' & 'humiliated' after giving birth on Jessop Wing
25-year-old Demi Hastings has been sharing her experiences after the maternity services at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals were recently rated 'inadequate' by the CQC
A mum in South Yorkshire tells us she was left feeling "exposed" and "humiliated" - after giving birth to her children at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.
Demi Hastings has been speaking to us following a damming report into maternity services at the Jessop Wing, which have been rated 'inadequate' by the Care Quality Commission.
Demi's first baby was born premature at 25 weeks, but tells us in some ways her experiences giving birth to her second child were worse:
"I gave birth at around 6.30am. I think the midwife was doing the handover at 7am, so from then until around 8am I was left exposed and bleeding.
"I felt really ill in this period of time and when the other midwife came in on the changeover, she did state that I shouldn't have been left that long on my own.
"The staff there need to take on board a lot of the concerns which have been shared by mum's who've had unpleasant experiences at Jessops so that improvements can be made.
"This would help mum's feel more reassured about going there in future."
Demi, who's now 25 years old, has also been telling us about when she gave birth to her first child there nine years ago:
"I felt like I was looked down on, maybe because I was only 16-years-old.
"The staff there accused me of taking drugs as well, which is why they thought I was behaving in such an erratic manner when I went into labour.
"When you go into labour at 25 weeks, at just 16 years old, you are naturally going to feel confused about everything."
In response, Professor Chris Morley, who's the Chief Nurse at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said:
“Our teams work hard to provide good care for women and their babies and we are very sorry that some aspects of Demi’s care were not as we would normally expect.
"There have been a lot of changes since Demi gave birth in 2013 and 2016 and we continue to respond to women and families feedback to make improvements.
"We have not had a formal complaint from Demi, but she can be assured that we have read her account in the media of what happened, and we will be including her experience together with feedback from other women in terms of considering what we are doing well but most importantly where we still need to improve.”