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hospital transfer
maybe some of you who've planned or considered homebirths in the USA can
give me a perspective on this, I've been reading through the documentation from the midwives on informed consent, one of the things is transfer to hospital and that in an emergency it would be 911 to the ER. This worries me, the local hospital is quite big, maternity and the ER are quite a way apart, the ER is on the ground floor quite away from the main hospital tower, where maternity is on the top floor. I guess it's a 10 minute push on a trolley! When weighing up the pros and cons of out of hospital birth in the UK, one of the things that is very clear is that if you transfer in an emergency the midwife will be in contact with the delivery suite and an ambulance would take you to wherever the drop off point is for that section of the hospital (UK hospitals tend to have the main ambulance drop off at A&E, but multiple ones around the site for getting patients to other wards, if the admission isn't by the patient calling an ambulance, but say a doctor deciding it's needed then calling a non emergency or emergency, as the case may be, ambulance to transfer). So the transfer time to the hospital can be estimated by the average time to get an ambulance to you and get to the hospital, then a very short pushing the trolley when you get there, the lifts are usually right by the entrances and the units on higher floors are generally right there when you get out the lift. In the information they are quick to remind you that most transfers are not an emergency, but that isn't really the point, the last thing you want on the off chance an emergency should occur is to get to the hospital and only at that point then waste 10+ minutes as you work your way through the system, because if it really were an emergency that time would be valuable. Same with transferring a baby, if resus beyond what the midwives can offer is needed, in the UK babies would be transferred directly to SCBU, again they call ahead and although there are special neonatal ambulances they are usually for hospital to hospital transfer so the baby would likely arrived in a normal ambulance, but if they are expecting a sick baby, they get a team right there in the foyer. I am aware of reports of babies dieing because ambulance teams failed to follow instructions as to where to go and the time delay may have contributed. My logic behind out of hospital birth as roughly been, there is no evidence that it's any more risky, and should an emergency happen there isn't necessarily any difference in getting help particularly if, as we did, you live near where an ambulance is stationed and they get to you fast and to the hospital fast. Now, my crutch has been whipped away, I still thinking it's overall safer, but the rare what if scenario suddenly seems a lot scarier! Cheers Anne |
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