Help! Royal womens or Sandringham?

[christyemma]

Hi! This is my first pregnancy and I am finding the options a tad daunting and being new to Melbourne and not having any friends that have been there and done it in Melbourne I am feeling a tad lost in the Australian system!
I am on public health care system and due to where I live I have the choice of Sandringham and Royal Women's - they both seems nice but I am not sure where to go! I would be grateful for your insights and advise:)

Thanks Christy :sunshine:

[CocktailBubba]

Well where do u live... There's quite some distance between the 2 :) like I'm talking around an hour between the to hospitals most likely more in traffic... Monash is much closer than the womens... I had DS at the RWH but it was in the old one in 2007 and I enjoyed my birthing experience and my stay.

I know someone who birthed there this year and couldn't fault them and 2 friends are going there and are due in June and July.

DP was born in sandringham a while ago though lol but I also know women who birthed there and loved it also... For some reason though I believe sandy is a low to medium risk hospital and if u have complications (knock on wood u don't) u will have to go to monash in Clayton- I think as it's the closest to sandringham..

Hope this helps a litte :)

[christyemma]

Thanks, Yep I am in South Melbourne so it's easy to get to both hospitals! so I am luck I have a choice but it is a tad confussing!

[Thermolicious]

You can check out this site for birth statistics :) http://www.mybirth.com.au/birth-stats/

[Ana Gram]

Personally, I wouldn't go back to Royal Woman's if you paid me a million dollars. So I'd suggest Sandringham.

[Thermolicious]

Personally, I wouldn't go back to Royal Woman's if you paid me a million dollars. So I'd suggest Sandringham.
Yeah that is the general picture I get from a lot of women who attended RWH :yes:

[CocktailBubba]

I liked my stay :) I'm sure u will here good and bad from any hospital... One of my mums friends had a c section at sandy a few years back and said that she could feel them cut but the drs brushed it off...

Anyway.. so OP did u mean u live in south Melbourne the suburb or in the southern suburbs.. Maybe check out both hospitals and see how u feel about each one.

But again, i believe these hospitals are not close to one another- they are on opposite sides of the city.

[shaakti]

I am saddened that Ana Gram had such an unfortunate experience that she recommends Sandringham over the Royal Womens Hospital.

Should you need an emergency Caesar - or even an elective Caesar, or if anything at all goes wrong, you and your baby have far better chances for survival if born at the Royal Womens or Monash Medical centre......rather than at Sandringham, or even any private hospital in Melbourne. The reason for this is that the Royal Womens (RWH) and Monash Medical Centre (MMC) are both level 3 hospitals meaning that they have Neonatal Intensive Care units with specialist neonatal doctors and nurses to resuscitate and otherwise assist a baby who had any type of adverse outcome related to pregnancy or delivery.

At Sandringham (which is public) and private hospitals, you would be lucky to find a doctor or nurse who is able to perform intensive resuscitation and keep the baby alive until such time that the Neontal Emergency Transport Service arrives from the RWH or MMC to care for your baby.

Nobody can every tell when something will go wrong, so if you can overlook the "comfort" or your delivery or the 2 days which you may need to stay in hospital, and look at the positives of what the RWH, MMC and the Mercy can provide: a place where your baby has a statistically better chance of survival in you have a haemorrhage, cord prolapse, cord around neck, pre-term delivery, emergency caesar, high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia or eclampsia, diabetes.

Don't think that your birth experience or chances of survival will be better just because you go to a private hospital (slightly off topic), as none of these hospitals are level 3 hospitals. If you really want to go private, get a private obstetrician and go to a level 3 hospital as a private patient or go to a private hospital which is attached to a level 3 hospital (FPH - RWH; JessieMcP - MMC). At the end of the day, nurses and midwives act in the same way at whichever hospital they work in, the hospital does not determine the experience or behaviour of the nurse or midwife. Personal comfort levels are a delusion and irrelevant if compared to what women have gone through in the past when delivering at home with minimal assistance, or without medical and nursing care - whether in Australia or in less privileged places.

Our birth experiences are quite subjective - depending on what we were expecting, however the fact is that the hospital delivery is there to ensure your survival and that of your baby - something that our ancestors never had the benefit of. Everything else is irrelevant.



Personally, I wouldn't go back to Royal Woman's if you paid me a million dollars. So I'd suggest Sandringham.

[Ana Gram]

As I said, I would NEVER recommend ANYONE go to Royal Women's.

I have spoken to a lot of women who have had horrendous experiences there. The fact that they almost killed me due to their incompetence is enough for me to always recommend people go elsewhere if they are able.

My level of expectancy was low. I expected to to not almost kill me. I think that is a reasonable expectation for any hospital and not that difficult to achieve.

Unfortunately a lot of women come out of Royal Women's suffering birth trauma due to their treatment from this hospital. And that is not irrelevant.

[shaakti]

If that is what suits you, that is fine.

However, when something goes wrong at Sandringham, the baby is sent to either MMC or RWH. When I say "goes wrong", I mean birth or pregnancy related complications which may cause the death of a neonate.

I note that you refer again to your birth trauma as "they almost killed me due to their incompetence". They - who? Doctors and nurses primary concerns are to keep people alive and to do no harm. No doctor or nurse wishes to be taken to court over their actions at work. If you needed a doctor during your delivery, it seems that it was not a straight forward delivery. If you indeed had a case for them "amost killing" you, surely you would be better off going to a solicitor and making your case in court or seeking compensation?

Please also remember that doctors and nurses at the RWH, Sandringham and everywhere else, also work at other hospitals, so if you believe that they almost killed you at the RWH, you may find the same people working at any other hospital in Melbourne. Many work shifts at different hospitals, but at least at the RWH, MMC and the Mercy you have the expert teams and equipment that can save baby and mother.

Nobody tries to be incompetent, nobody is allowed to be incompetent, nobody wants to go home at the end of a day knowing that they have caused harm or hurt. Often what is perceived as incompetence, is actually the other's frustration over their lack of control of a situation.

Our children are our immortality, they carry our DNA on to the next generation. If they don't survive the experience and come out of it well, what's the point?

[Ana Gram]

Wow. Just wow. I am deeply disturbed by your post. My child is more than just passing on my DNA, what an odd thing to say.

And thank you once again for dismissing my birth trauma as nothing.

[text deleted by moderator]

And for the record, I shouldn't have needed a doctor. I didn't need a doctor until the medical staff screwed things up and then the ob nearly killed me.

[shaakti]

The point actually is - that a normal delivery can be handled by a midwife, therefore your delivery was not deemed as normal. Obstetricians and doctors don't go around "screwing it up" for the sake of it.

Our children are precious, yes. I have never indicated or insinuated otherwise, however there is more to a delivery that requires medical intervention, than being capable of "screwing it up". If the doctors at your delivery had indeed screwed it up, your efforts would be better served by taking legal action. And, as I have said before, the ranting about the RWH or any other hospital is irrelevant, because doctors and nurses often work in multiple hospitals - in fact I have never heard of an Ob who only works at the RWH.

I also suspect that if you had not gone through what you have, with the assistance of doctors, you would have undergone the trauma of losing a child - which is much worse. My basic point is that doctors etc don't do things to cause trauma; if you perceived your delivery as traumatic...ok, but telling people not to go to one particular hospital is illogical when doctors and nurses practice at numerous hospitals...and you and the baby survived. This cannot always be said for level 2 hospitals such as Sandringham, Sunshine, Werribee etc. Think about it. It's not a personal attack, it's advice from someone who has 30 years experience in the field.

[shaakti]

I'm not talking up the RWH or any other hospital, I'm trying to explain the benefits of particular hospitals where high level care is more readily available. If you have the benefit of being able to choose, that's great. But nobody should be trying to scare women who have no option as public patients, except to go to one particular hospital.

Just because you don't agree with me doesn't mean that I'm wrong or that my posts are "dodgy"

[Nomsie]

Please stick to the topic at hand- Royal Womens or Sandringham. Any other off topic material will be deleted.

[Manxie]

This thread is closed for cleaning as despite repeated requests to stick to answering the OP's question..........