Poor facilities and aftercare

My wife and I used the Genesis Clinic on the 21st August 2020 for the birth of our second child. We went through all procedures and forms on time and according to the indicated processes.

We had booked and payed for a private room downstairs. When we got to the clinic at 1am on the 21-08-2020, we were told that non of the downstairs rooms were available and we had to use the upstairs rooms. This was due to the clinic being very full at the time. We did not confirm it by checking ourselves as we had no reason to doubt the staff.

The upstairs section facilitiies have a lot to be sorted out. Firstly, we were ushered to the birthing room. We were left in the room and told the midwife would come shortly. We were not told anything further. The room was freezing cold. We had to switch the aircon on ourselves. The pillows on the bed for my wife was horrendous. they provdided no support or comfort. There was no headboard or anything besides cold walls at the head of the bed.

The midwife came in and assisted us trying her best to make my wife comfortable. The midwife has to request a blanket as the room was so cold. She also requested additional pillows which only one thin one was provided.

My wife requested to use the birthing bath, when the midwife checked it, she discovered the drain plug was missing. She went to look for another one which ended up being too small. The resulting effect was that we could not use the birthing bath as it would not fill.

During my wife's labour, she knocked her head on the wall as there was no headboard.

Later that morning after our second child was born, we were told we had to move as another patient needed the room. We were then moved to a semi-private room that was small, noisy and had a shared bathroom. The midwife actually told us to rather take a discharge the same day as my wife would get better rest at home. That was the level of noise and discomfort at the clinic. The semi-private room has no headboard at the head of the bed, the pillows were thin and pointless again. There was no kettle for us to even make a cup of tea and coffee.

When we requested that the baby's vaccinations be done, were told that only the BCG vaccine can be done and Polio vaccine is out of stock. Both vaccines are to be administired at birth by government law. We were told to come back three days later. We were also told that the Baby bag that we paid for was out of stock and that it would come in the following week.

As we did not use the downstairs section, we were handed a form and told to fill it in and email through to the lady in charge of accounts. She would effect a refund of our private room booking fee.

Today we called the clinic to enquire what was happening as we had received no communication from the clinic with regards to the vaccine and the baby bag. We were informed that the bag is still not in stock, over a week later and they cannot promise us that we will get the bag even though we paid for it from our hospital plan.

We were also told that the polio vaccine is out of stock and they do not know when they will get it. We must go to our own paediatrician or dischem and get it.

This level of service is totally unacceptable. How can a maternity clinic not have stock of a mandatory vaccine required by government? How can they charge for items they do not have and not provide them when it is stated that patients will receive it.

The facilities were poorly managed and not in a good condition.

Our first child was supposed to be born at Genesis but due to him being born before 37 weeks, we had to go to Linkswood clinic. In hind sight I am grateful that we could not use Genesis as our experience was horrible. Linkswood Clinic was ten times better.

Furthermore, the Genesis clinic webste does not work. There is no email address and the landline number listed for the clinic does not work as well.