COMPLAINTS
NOTE: Even though this video mentions Queensland, the general points are still relevant to other states.
HOW TO STEP BY STEP
1. Request a copy of your medical records. To do this, Google your hospital name + 'copy of medical records'
2. Google your hospital's consumer feedback email address.
3. Using the email template on the right as a guide, copy and paste and edit to fit your experience.
4. Set a calendar alert to check you've received a written response in 30 days as you may need to chase up a written response.
5. Email the hospital's response HERE.
PLEASE NOTE
If you've found these resources helpful and are in a position to; please consider joining MCA as a member so that we can continue building on this work and providing complaints templates for each state. JOIN NOW HERE
- This is not medical or legal advice but potential remedies to encourage care providers to deliver respectful maternity care.
- These templates are QLD specific as we are still working on collating templates for other states.
- This process is most easily done on a desktop, for ease of copying and pasting from the Hosptials table.
EXAMPLE TEMPLATE
What happened?
Here are some examples:
(They did to me...)
-I consented to a vaginal exam but was given a stretch and sweep without consent
-I was told I wasn't allowed access to water birth as pain relief and coerced into epidural
-I was forced into my back and it hurt and caused me to tear
-I was touched without consent
-I was coerced into induction/c-section with the dead baby card
-I wasn't given full free and informed consent abut the risks of induction/c-section
-I didn't give full free and informed consent for GTT and was unaware of the risks and consequences of having this test.
-I was yelled at for eating/vomiting
-My clitoral tissue was severed with reduced sexual function without full free and informed consent
-I was given a husband stitch which is female genital mutilation without full free and informed consent
-I was coerced into an anal exam despite no clinical indication or evidence for this degrading practice
-I was given a synto injection without full free and informed consent ie not told the risks to me and my baby.
-My babies cord was cut early for no reason causing harm and resuscitation didn't occur on me which is most optimal
-My placenta was disposed of without full free and informed consent with devastating impacts on its cultural significance
(No access to...)
-Qld is the only state not to have insurance for publicly funded homebirth. -I am being denied access to the best outcomes for myself and my baby (Homer 2019, Tuck-Davies 2018, Sandal 2018, Reitsma 2020)
-I didn't get into MGP
-I didn't get into Birth Center
-I didn't get to birth close to home
-I didn't get access to waterbirth
-I didn't get access to a vaginal breech birth clinic
-My private midwife, photographer or doula wasn't allowed to support me even though I had paid them
-Support people of choice given the cultural significance to me.
-Birthing on Country Services
-In home postnatal support
How it made you feel?
Here are some examples:
-inhuman, lack of choice, coerced, offended, not valued, degraded, treated like a child with no autonomy, risking my baby and my morbidity, fear, scared, unsupported, risk of poor outcomes associated with hospital birth, not listened to, anxious about strangers,
Remedy
What do you want the service to respond with?
- Apology for not providing it
- Apology for not providing info on accessing best practice models of care and place of birth
- Apology for not providing information on how to complain and remedy at time of appointment to ensure full, free and informed consent
-Facility upgrade and Clinician upskilling in clinical practice
- Hospital service: to write to state Minister for Health asking for Publicly Funded Homebirth insurance to be added to insurance certificate, greater access to birth centres & continuity targets
- Infographics publicly available on social media showing maternity outcomes and experience measures (such as percentage of consumers offered MGP at time of birth, water birth, c-section, perineal trauma including episiotomy and 3/4 degree tear rate)
-This service paying for private care if unable to meet your needs.