Elaine Ritchie
After gynae issues since the age of 12, I sat in the consultant’s clinic room as she told me that I needed to have a hysterectomy. She didn’t examine me or ask me many questions and when I cried telling her that I still hoped to have children, she curtly replied that a hysterectomy was my only option if I wanted to get rid of my pain and she left the room.
Not happy with my consultation, I sought a second opinion and found an amazing male gynaecologist who listened with empathy. He examined me and arranged an MRI scan. The results came back showing a “huge uterus” full of fibroids. I’d had them removed before, but they were now back and so big that I couldn’t do up my trousers as my belly was so swollen and they were pressing on my bladder and my sciatic nerve. I now knew I had no choice but to go through with the surgery but being able to see the problem on my scans and having a sympathetic consultant explain it all to me made such a difference. If I was going to let someone remove my womb and my chance of being a mum, I had to know I was making the right decision for the right reasons rather than a Dr telling me that I had no other choice.
I am a medical professional myself; I wouldn’t just tell my patients what was needed to be done, I would explain what was happening to their body and the benefit any procedure would have for them. Patients have a right to the information on their own body and any planned treatments to enable them to be able to make an informed decision.
The care from my consultant was exemplary and I thought having the surgery in the hospital in which I worked, my treatment would be exemplary too.
After 2 weeks of isolation due to covid regulations where I was alone at home dreading what was to come and working all hours, so I didn’t have to think about my womb being removed, I sat waiting to go to the operating theatre for my hysterectomy. My team of fellow nurses joined me in my wait to try and relieve some of my worry. In front of them all as well as the hospital chaplain who came to give me some support, a nursing assistant came into the room waving a piece of paper and said, “good news, your pregnancy test is negative”!!
NICE guidelines (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) in the UK document on the subject of pre procedure pregnancy tests: “On the day of surgery, sensitively ask all women of childbearing potential whether there is any possibility they could be pregnant.”
Noone had this discussion with me, and it certainly wasn’t handled sensitively.
A few weeks later and I was back in the gynae outpatient’s department for my first post op follow up. I checked in with the receptionist and was told to take a seat in the waiting room. As I sat waiting, the room was filling up with other women, many of them with partners and most of them were pregnant. I sat quietly feeling extremely uncomfortable and realised that the baby scanning room was opposite the waiting room where I was sitting! The waiting room was quiet, and I could hear noises coming from the scanning room. It was heart beats being picked up on the monitor that I’m sure the mums in the scanning room were thrilled to hear while it made my heart break just a little bit more.
The back part of the waiting room was screened off with a curtain and as I sat hearing baby heart beats that were by now echoing around my head, the women that had had their scans came out clutching their precious pictures of their unborn children and went behind the curtain to see the nurse who would give them their flu jab. Hospital curtains may prevent you from seeing what’s happening behind them, but they certainly are not soundproof. I then had to endure hearing excited mothers to be, telling the nurse all about their scan and what a wonderful experience it was.
I went into see my consultant a sobbing wreck.
I now see waiting rooms, hospital wards and practices from a childless person’s point of view. Most hospitals have a women and children’s directorate, and obstetrics and gynaecology are put together as one department. From a childless not by choice perspective, this is not appropriate. We don’t put an old lady with a broken hip on a children’s ward because its not appropriate, what part of putting an involuntary childless person in with pregnant women is appropriate?
The walls and information leaflet racks are festooned with colourful pictures and important information on procedures, operations and support groups for various health conditions that may be experienced by those patients attending the department but where are the posters and the signposts to our childless support networks? We deserve to be seen and heard and have our unique needs in healthcare recognised.
Imagine how different my experience could’ve been if when sitting in that waiting room hearing those baby heart beats, I had looked up and seen a World Childless Week poster saying its wonderful slogan, “We are here for you through the year, we get louder in September”.
We have a voice, we are important, and we deserve excellence in healthcare just like it is expected by everyone else. We need to implement change.
