Forum home Babies Baby

OT - NHS across the country.

This is slightly OT so forgive me. I hope you can help me.

I am going back to work as a teacher next week and have been given some Year 13 (18 years) General Studies lessons. Anyway I am covering a number of different topics, one of which is "NHS - postcode lottery?".

What I would like is some real life case studies of your experience with the NHS. I am concentrating on three main subjects:

1) Availability of chemotherapy drugs - were you/friend/relative denied certain drugs that were available privately or elsewhere in the country?
2) Birth centres - did you have access to homebirth or midwife-led unit if you wanted it? Did you have access to a birthpool if you wanted it?
3) Special care babies - if your baby needed special care was it available at your local hospital? Did you and/or LO need to be transferred?

I do not want to go back over old threads as those people posted in privacy. If you post here I will assume you are ok for me to use your story. They will, of course, remain anomalous and I won't even mention this site. I just need some real-life case studies.

Thank you very much in advance, :\)
H xx

Replies

  • Again refering to no.2, I live in Mid Wales and out here there is only a midwife led birthing centre within at least an hour's driving distance. There is a small hospital but it's gp run so there is no access to epidural, c-section, special care etc.

    Being nervous about my first birth I chose to give birth in my home town, Shrewsbury which was also where I was working at the time. I moved in with my mum to make sure I had access to the hospital. I did give birth on a midwife led unit but the consultancy unit was next door and there is a good scbu there too.

    Next time I will be happy to give birth here as I would like a home birth and Powys has one of the highest percentages of home births in the country. However I would request a transfer to Shrewsbury hospital if anything went wrong.
Sign In or Register to comment.

Featured Discussions