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Midwifery appointments

Posted By paprikadk36

"Midwifery appointments"

About: Swan Hill District Hospital / Midwifery Department

(as the patient),

I had an appointment booked, which I was told an hour before its time that I had to park out front of the hospital, then call to have it over the phone and would only need to go up for a short time. I was fine with this because I understand things are different at the moment. But about three minutes before my appointment time, when I was parked out front of the hospital, I had another call postponing it to the following day with a specialist.

Once again, I was told to park out front of the hospital and wait for a phone consult which would be followed by a short in person chat. I recall I waited in around 35degree heat in the car for 45mins for the phone call, which I felt went for less than 5mins, and I didn’t need to go upstairs to see the specialist at all.

I am frustrated that I wasn't told to do this from the comfort of my own home, and hope that this isn’t repeated with my following appointments.

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Responses

Response from Chloe Keogh, Executive Director of Clinical Care, Executive Offices, Swan Hill District Health 2 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Chloe Keogh
Executive Director of Clinical Care, Executive Offices,
Swan Hill District Health

Overall responsibility for the running of the health service, reports to the Board of Management. Acting for 3.5 months to replace Long Service Leave.

Submitted on 19/01/2022 at 3:04 PM
Published on Care Opinion on 20/01/2022 at 5:06 PM

picture of Chloe Keogh

Dear paprikadk36,

My role is as the person in charge of the nurses and midwives, and during the covid response it is to ensure patient flow is optimal throughout the service. This means how people access services and get the support they need.

Thank you for posting about your experience with maternity appointments during the covid pandemic. I would like to apologise to you on behalf of the maternity unit for the disruption and complication of your appointments being rescheduled, being by phone, being delayed and only minimal face to face time. I understand that this has been very frustrating for you.

We have recently conducted a survey of women birthing in the area, and there were a number of comments on this survey similar to your own about appointment times and communication for appointments. I have spoken to our Maternity Unit Manager about this situation, and she is currently working with the midwives and ward clerks about how to make a change that will improve this. We definitely need to be doing this better.

We will communicate with you again through Care Opinion when we have a solution to this issue.

Kind Regards

Chloe

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Response from Chloe Keogh, Executive Director of Clinical Care, Executive Offices, Swan Hill District Health 2 years ago
We have made a change
Chloe Keogh
Executive Director of Clinical Care, Executive Offices,
Swan Hill District Health

Overall responsibility for the running of the health service, reports to the Board of Management. Acting for 3.5 months to replace Long Service Leave.

Submitted on 23/02/2022 at 2:29 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 3:43 PM

picture of Chloe Keogh

Dear paprikadk36,

As I mentioned earlier, I needed to speak to the team in maternity, the clerical team of ward clerks who make the appointments, the midwives and the obstetricians about your experience. I do apologise for the delay in getting back to you.

Unfortunately, some of the issues that you raise are directly from the impact of COVID 19, and we continue to have 200 or more COVID positive people within our community today. The hybrid appointment schedule (part of the appointment in your car by phone and part in face-to-face) is all about restricting people coming in to the health service and being unnecessarily exposed to this virus, but to ensure you are available to come into the maternity unit during your appointment then patients were being asked to do part of the appointment from their cars, before coming upstairs. Please accept my apologies regarding some of the disruptions to your expectations, this is not our ideal method for running appointments, however has been required due to COVID.

The staff have made some changes in the way they schedule appointments and they are trying to minimise changes to appointment times, and also are double-checking that all calls have been returned to patients for their appointments each day.

Thank you for taking the time to write about your experience. I am so sorry that you have not felt it was a good way to manage maternity appointments. We are all looking forward to a time when there is less COVID virus and we can resume maternity appointments face to face.

Kind Regards,

Chloe

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