Health / Bereavement suite to be created in hospital for those suffering baby loss
A NEW bereavement suite offering a comfortable space for parents who have suffered the loss of their baby is planned for the maternity department in Lerwick’s Gilbert Bain Hospital.
The existing rooms in the ward are also in line for an upgrade, with work expected to get underway this financial year.
The dedicated bereavement suite would include a bedroom space as well as shower facilities, and it would offer more privacy for those grieving the loss of their baby.
At the moment any woman who suffers a miscarriage is cared for within the maternity unit, but NHS Shetland’s chief midwife Jacqui Whitaker said this is not ideal – as, for instance, families might hear babies crying on the ward.
“It’s not nice – if you imagine you’ve had a pregnancy loss, but you’re actually cared for within maternity,” she told Shetland News.
“We looked at ways of how could we deliver it sensitively, and there was nowhere in the current make-up of maternity to do that.”
The suite will be a dedicated room with a separate entrance and exit, meaning women who do have a loss will not have to come into the maternity department itself.
There is also a room “where the little one can go afterwards, if they don’t want their baby in the room with them”, Whitaker said.
The suite would be installed in place of staff offices.
NHS Shetland is also working with baby loss charity Sands on the design of the suite, while a parent that has used the service in the past will be involved.
Sands says that 13 families a day in the UK suffer the heartbreak of losing their baby before, during or shortly after birth.
Elsewhere on the Gilbert Bain’s maternity ward there will be improved climate control, a reorganised layout and a fresh lick of paint.
For partners the seats inside the maternity rooms will be upgraded to chairs which fold out into beds.
At the moment these are “big solid chairs, but they’re not comfortable – so if a partner wants to stay with their girlfriend, wife overnight then they’ll have a chair that converts into a bed, so they’re comfortable as well,” Whitaker said.
With a new replacement hospital on the horizon – although it may be some years away – the chief midwife said the refurbishment is likely to be last within maternity in the current Gilbert Bain.
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