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MAMA-KANGAROO 117
I gave birth to my baby 4 months ago, in 2008. CHC-Zvezdara-Belgrade I suffered a lot of unpleasantness when I came to CHC Zvezdara with my waters already broken. I was greeted by a pissed-off nurse and examined by a doctor who told me I wasn’t to be delivered until morning the other day. In the morning I was lifted on the delivery table, not cleaned of course, and at one moment a midwife disinfected the table using water and left it wet under my body, with the air-conditioning cooling the air directly above my head. The humiliation I suffered was reflected through the pissed-off attitude everyone had towards me. They called me by name and “mother”. That is the only human-like thing they did. Of course there were problems with the equipment, the accommodation within the baby friendly programme wasn’t that bad, the rooms were clean, but the maintenance staff and cooks were kinder than the medical staff. I lay on the bloodied bed sheets for over a week because my baby had newborn hepatitis and I begged them for five days to change those sheets. Finally, I got up, threw my bed sheets away and took the clean ones from an empty bed. They replaced those other sheets afterwards, puzzled by the mysterious disappearance of the previous ones. I saw my baby immediately after the childbirth. I could see him often as the baby friendly programme allows it. The meaning of breastfeeding is unknown to me as I did not have any milk from the very beginning and none of the nurses was kind enough to tell me that I DO NOT have milk. Instead they told me to keep breastfeeding, that I wasn’t familiar with the technique, that I would learn and that my baby boy did not know how to suck etc. My baby lived on supplemental feeding, I went through hell and it is all on their conscience. I doubted the procedure because there was a tall, grey-haired doctor (I don’t know his name) who made rounds and did not instruct the continuation of my antibiotic therapy. It was stopped in the middle and everyone who knows the least bit about medicines knows that an antibiotic therapy has to be applied until the end. I doubted everything there was at the maternity ward, I could write until tomorrow, my child was in incubator for hepatitis and some nurse was sitting in a little room right next to it smoking. If I started telling what should be changed, I would change everything. The unprofessional behaviour and unkind gestures would be punished by firing from job, suspension or fine. If our state wishes for our birth-rate to increase, it should make well-argumented appeals!!! I did not bribe anyone and it seems that it would be better if I did. During my studies it was unclear to me why the students pay for the exams – I would rather take the exam 15 times but I would not give money – but here it seems that you have to give money since your baby’s life is in the hands of people who will help you only IF YOU GIVE THEM MONEY!!! All in all, it would be nice if this medical staff understood that we are not spoiled women, that we are simply scared, that it is our first time at the maternity ward, that we do not know anything; therefore instruct us, is it so difficult to be HUMAN?!!! I don’t want to be pampered and cuddled when I come to maternity ward – all I want and what I am entitled to is the right not to have the already difficult and stressful situation aggravated for me further.
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STORIES FROM MATERNITY WARDS Mama-Kangaroo 002
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