Sicko Fun Fact: Pregnant Women Denied Epidurals in England

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But hey, let’s get a system like that here! From The Daily Mail:

Hundreds of women are being forced to give birth without proper pain relief because of staff shortages at an NHS hospital.

Mothers-to-be are being denied epidurals – which numb the body from the waist down – because of a lack of anaesthetists.

An investigation by the Daily Mail found that the problem at Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle has been going on for at least three years.

Women planning to give birth at the hospital, which delivers 1,600 babies a year, are told no epidurals are available because of a lack of senior anaesthetists.

They are needed because the procedure involves injecting a drug directly into the spine.

The failure flouts guidance from four Royal Colleges, including the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians, that women should have access to an epidural within 30 minutes of requesting one.

It adds to mounting concern about the quality of NHS maternity care, with midwives in some hospitals expected to attend to three women in labour at the same time due to staff shortages.

Maggie Blott, vice-president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said last night: ‘An epidural service should be a routine part of maternity care.

‘There will be some women who are extremely traumatised by not having an epidural, particularly if they have a long and difficult labour. I would think women who have such labours have psychological problems afterwards.’

Universal health care sounds great! Jenn Q Public has more.

3 thoughts on “Sicko Fun Fact: Pregnant Women Denied Epidurals in England”

  1. really, and i guess all those woman who have given birth over the last 4 thousand years without anesthesia have been traumatized.

  2. Uh, yeah alex, and plenty of them died because the pain sent their bodies into shock. But I guess that wouldn’t bother you.

    Next time you break a bone or have a kidney stone or get a root canal, I dare you to just suck it up without painkillers. Yeah, I didn’t think so.

    You’re a filthy misogynist.

    And you do know that anatomically modern human women have been giving birth for tens of thousands of years, not four thousand, right?

  3. Actually Sam many of those women were traumatized, if by traumatized you mean died.

    Why should the English accept third world medical care, and the mortality rates that will no doubt come along with it?

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