A HOSPITAL was forced to apologise after failing to provide tea and toast to a mother who had just given birth.
St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny blamed low levels of night staffing for the problem.
The hospital says it “regrets that a staff member was not available to provide a cup of tea/coffee on the night in question”.
Stacey Hayden from Carlow, who gave birth to her second child, Ellie, in St Luke’s, said she was shocked that cutbacks meant there were no domestic staff to provide tea after she gave birth.
Her mother-in-law Paula Norton said she was “disgusted”.
“I live in Kildare so when I got the call that little Ellie was born, I went straight to the hospital. I was there when she was 40 minutes old.
“They were wheeling mum and daughter out of the delivery suite and I asked her, ‘Did you get a cup of tea?’. When I asked one of the staff in the hospital if there was any chance of getting a cuppa for Stacey, I was told, ‘Sorry, we lost our domestic, we don’t have the facility’.
“I thought, ‘You’re joking, there’s a young girl here who has just given birth’,” she told Ray D’arcy on ‘Today FM’.
Mrs Norton, the mother of Stacey’s partner Steven Norton, was full of praise for the nurses and midwives.
But she criticised the effect of cutbacks on nursing mothers.
“It was only 10 past eight in the evening and you couldn’t get as much as a cup of tea; it’s shocking that mothers are treated like that.
“I think the Minister for Health should be ashamed, it’s scandalous. If a cat just had kittens, you’d give it a saucer of milk. This is the meanest cutback of all,” she added.
The HSE responded last night by stating that it provided a full catering service from 7.45am to 8pm daily.
“At night, staffing levels across the hospital are lower and, unfortunately, it can be difficult sometimes for staff to provide tea/coffee to patients during the night when they are busy with other tasks,” it said.
The statement said that there was a partners’ room with tea- and coffee-making facilities.
“The hospital regrets that a staff member was not available to provide a cup of tea/coffee on the night in question,” it added.
Source – Eimear Ni Bhraonain Irish Independent
31st January 2012 by JugglingMum in eumom | 6 Comments »Tags: st lukes kilkenny, tea and toast
Follow us on Twitter
Join us on Facebook
I too gave birth in St, Lukes in Kilkenny over Xmas, I was never offered anything either, now I didnt look for tea and toast as I went through such a drama after I gave birth to my new bouncing baby boy, and was too wrapped up of getting to see my new baby after been away from him for nearly 6 hours. It was after 1am the I got back from theater after been in the hospital from 3pm the day before.
It wasn’t till the catering staff came around the next morning, I had the first bit of food to eat since I gave birth at 6.30pm the day before! No wonder I thought it was the best tea and toast and bowl of cornflakes I ate in my life, sure I was starving! There was a woman in the ward across from me and she did asked for tea and toast shortly after she gave birth and was told no that the kitchen was closed and they didnt have the keys to the kitchen to make it, she must have been local as her husband went home and brought her stuff back to eat. Some of the nurses would bend over backwards to you and others would barley look at you and think your a drama queen if you asked them a question.
But saying that on 2 different occasions, two different new mothers asked for a nokia charger and one of the nurses went out of her way to find them chargers to charge their mobiles!
God, it just gets worse and worse here every day.
Same happened to me in NMH Holles St in November 2011. Had a slice of toast at 4am when water broke at home, was admitted at 7am, had emergency c-section at 1pm, in recovery ’till 8pm and no food/tea until 8am the following morning!
Shame On The Health Service In This Country They Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves
SHAME SHAME SHAME ON THE PEOPLE RUNNING THIS COUNTRY PACK OF MUPPETS
That’s appalling!! They dhould have been sued for such a disgrace!! When i had my 4th child last August, I was constipated for 48hrs and at 1.30am, i rushed to the loo after the third time, there was no toilet tissue in the Toilet, so evidently i rang the Emergency bell, i was asked: If i was OK, i said i needed toilet roll, only to be told very rudely, ‘That’s NOT an Emergency!!!’
omg you poor woman , its a disgrace what they did to her , the best cup of tea and toast i ever had was after my children and still today cant get it like that ha ha