Dear Editor:
Contraction pains grip you as you settle into your hospital room so crowded that there is little room to walk with the curtains pulled around the beds. It is crowded, hot and stuffy. Add to this melee the newborn babies in basinets and it is now noisy! Relief floods you as you learn that a private room has opened up at a cost of $65 a day. This room has a shower, toilet and a sink situated beside the door. Awesome until the sink springs a leak with a steady drip that could drive one crazy.
You have been told that when in labor it helps to have a shower or to sit in the tub – but then you find out that in reality, that tub is in the labor room and that means you would have to listen to mothers in the midst of labor pain! And oh yes, the showers have been known to be temperamental with only cold water. The labor room is dingy and appears to have been last painted in eighties and has wallpaper peeling from the wall. While in the labor room, while holding your first born baby you are told the sink is not usable in your room, you will use the sink that is in the open in the sitting room.
Are you in a third world country? No, sadly, this is the Yorkton Hospital in the Sunrise Health District, April, 2015.
How can this be? I am ashamed that we accept this as a standard for our health care and that in doing so compromise the health and wellbeing of our new mothers. I am saddened as well that this is the working environment for the hospital staff. By sending this letter I am hoping that others too will realize that this is not ok and like me, do something about it.
Brenda Herring
Regina, Sask.
