Dear Mr. Rick Adams, QEH Executive Director and Ms. Marionn Clark, QEH Interim Director of Nursing:
While reading the most recent newsletter released by the QEH, we were discouraged to discover the new renovation plans for QEH have ignored the dire state of the labour/delivery and postpartum units. While we applaud the addition of one birthing suite for the unit and the recent policy changes to help keep mothers and babies together, we notice there are no further renovations planned for the maternity ward. Currently, the unit has the capacity to offer the birthing suite to only one third of the women who birth at the hospital. Research shows that healthy women and babies should not be in contact with the general hospital population to prevent the spread of disease. In moving toward raising the standard of care at the QEH we would like to know when the hospital plans to bring this unit up to standard.
A quote directly from the Family Centered Care Guidelines, which all health institutions across Canada are working towards, states, “Women should…be supported in a warm, comforting one-room environment, where they can labour, give birth, spend time with their babies and be cared for, together, without disruption of being moved from place to place, or being separated from their newborn.” Even though the QEH is moving in the right direction with their new rooming-in policy for mothers and babies, the facilities still do not provide the proper environment.
The Guidelines also state, “…caring for women is best done in the context of their families. Therefore, families should be comfortably accommodated in the environment and feel part of the process.” Currently, there is no family waiting room available in the labour and delivery unit, and new policies state that children under the age of 12 are not welcome in the unit at any time. The current space and policies in place are obviously not recognizing or honoring families as an integral part of the birth process for the women giving birth at QEH. This type of environment creates an undue amount of stress on a birthing mother when she needs to feel as comfortable and safe as possible in order to have the best possible outcome for mother and baby. Women have contacted our group and expressed that they are very concerned at the prospect of being separated from their older children while they are at the hospital.
For women having a Cesarean birth, the Guidelines recommend, “ …the operative/cesarean birth room and recovery area should be located within the maternal and newborn care area.” QEH protocol is to keep mothers after surgery in a General Recovery area with any number of patients from all areas within the hospital. This puts a woman in direct contact with other possibly sick patients and risks the health of mother and newborn. During this lengthy period of time, the mother is left alone with no support from family or caregivers, and is separated from her baby.
In the postpartum maternity ward, based on the National Guidelines, “ No other services should be provided in <the> area, nor should clients from other services be cared for in the maternal and newborn area.” Again, this is not the case at QEH. Women, who have had a variety of gynecological surgeries including hysterectomies and miscarriages, are placed in the maternity ward for their recovery. Not only can this be an emotional assault on women recovering from these types of surgeries, but it is also a health risk for mothers and newborns to again be exposed to possible sicknesses.
The current climate at the hospital has not resulted in improved rates of continued breast feeding either. As you are aware BORN Cooperative is committed to seeing that Midwives and Doulas become a part of the maternity care offered in PEI. We respectfully remind you that a healthy start in life is a good precursor to a healthy adult who in turn will need less expensive medical care in the future.
PEI families deserve up to date facilities that allow for Family Centered Care to be fully implemented and available to all. We continue to hear from women who choose to birth out of the province or in Summerside to avoid the antiquated facilities at the QEH. If we hope to bring young families to PEI and keep them here, we must offer contemporary care. In our meetings with the medical community we have heard the willingness to provide Family Centered Care. This is much more than bricks and mortar, however an out of date facility makes their job more difficult. We hope to hear a reason as to why expecting families are not being considered during the renovations on our hospital.
We have had very positive interaction with the current government in our discussions of improvements to maternity care in PEI. We also have been very encouraged by the nursing staff at both hospitals who have made it clear they embrace the movement toward family centered care through both public forums and private meetings. We hope to continue to work with the hospital and women’s organizatons across P.E.I to move to fully adapting Health Canada’s Guidelines.
Sincerely,
Robyn Brehaut
President of BORN Cooperative
