Hot and Cold

Pro’s and Con’s of Midstream Mediclinic:

Here is our experience with Midstream Mediclinic for the birth of our first child.

We used Dr Van Schalkwyk as our gynae, wow, what an awesome Doc, I would recommend him to anyone, keeping in mind that I am a male. He was gentle with us, my wife was very happy with him and he is not one of those doctors that force you to go ceaser. He let us wait until the very end to make our (her – my Wife) decision and gave us sound advice along the way. It ended up that our little boy Braven needed to come 2 week early, he arranged the ceaser and it was done same day. So far so good right ? Let’s move on.

Prior to the birth, we did what I assume many parents do, we did the first aid course and the ante natal class with Baby Clinic Midstream, inside the hospital although I’m not sure if they are part of the hospital. Nevertheless I cannot say much good about them: • First aid – cost is R 1 350.00 per 2 people or R 900.00 per person. We opted for the R 1 350.00 for myself and my wife, as well as the R 900.00 for our nanny. Our class was scheduled for a Sat morning early in May 2019. On the Friday afternoon my mother in law decided she would like to join. I figured this would not be a problem so she joined on the Sat and I mentioned to the instructor who was dismal at best (but we will get to that), that we would sort out the payment the following week. Stupid me thinking that we could just pay an extra R 450.00 making the nanny and granny a couple for the price of R 1 350.00. Boy was I mistaken, I received a call from Annete the following week complaining that we had sent an extra person for the training, I mentioned that it would not be a problem I would pay over the R 450.00 as it was a last minute inclusion for my mother in law. No way she said, we need to do things properly and pay the full R 900.00, long conversation short, she was extremely rude about this, would not listen to reasoning and spoke over me not giving me a chance to speak back. Left a very sour taste in my mouth, anyways, I suppose we were not all born with good manners and a want for good customer service. If that is the way she would like to run her business, who am I as the client to complain. On to the actual class, well here is the thing, you pay R 1 350.00 or R 900.00 to sit and watch repeats of videos, over and over for about 4 or 5 hours, play with Annie Resuscitation dolls. The class does not have any sort of test to see if you are first aid compliant as per a previous class I attended for work purposes a few years back, we had to write a test as well as prove that we can manoeuvre CPR without assistance. If for example you are sending a nanny, she will receive her cert whether she is able to carry out any first aid or not, so this is very much pointless. The class did not cover even half of what I had covered in my previous class, a total waste of money, I am no smarter after the class than what I was before, I literally could have just googled videos and practiced on a pillow. So this one for me was a total waste of my time and well money too. • Ante natal class – obviously I have no other class to compare this to, so for me this was a good class, we got to learn about swaddling, changing nappies and the like. However due to the rudeness of Annete, as per the above, and her partner in a story below, and the total ******* for the first aid we will not use them again.

Back to the birth and the few days after, what a pleasure. In hospital the nurses were exceptionally brilliant, we enjoyed our stay very much. They were patient, assisted constantly and were out of this world friendly. Well run maternity ward, we loved it. Suppose the security could be a little better though, but I have seen this at other hospitals too.

On day 2 of the hospital stay, the vaccination people came around, guess what, it was the same lady who did the ante natal class. Man, she couldn’t get out of our room quick enough, it was as if we were a number to her, she literally ran into our room, showed us papers we needed to sign for consent, barely explained what was what, I wasn’t too annoyed by this as I understand that there were 6 other maternity patients that day and to spend more than 3 minutes with each of them puts a huge black hole in her day. I was however annoyed by what happened next, I **** you not, I cannot make this up, the flippen annoyance of a lady, picked our baby up by his collar, head hanging in the air, she then faced the other way and just dropped him back into his pram. Again, I **** you not, I damn near smacked the lady out of the room, I was NOT IMPRESSED by the so called nurse. This was most unpleasant and I would advise not to use her as the service together with the lacklustre attitude is close to unforgiving. She then asked if she could be the nurse for his check up, I strongly disagreed.

Another issue we had, on day 3 when we were supposed to be discharged (before 12p in order for the medical aid not to have to pay for another day), by 11:45a I had to go to the nurses station to ask about discharge, the lady then scrambled to get this done, as if she had no clue what was going on or that we needed to be discharged. the food lady was also supposed to give us a going away special breakfast, she ended up packing us fruit and chips in a bag as nothing had been arranged, so the ending was not too good.

When leaving the hospital we realised that his home affairs docs were not completed, over looked by us, our mistake. however the hospital does say that they do this for you. So we went back in and again the lady at reception did not know a thing, she handed us some forms to complete, these forms could have been given to us during our 3 day stay at the hospital for us to complete prior to leaving. We ended up staying for another 2 hours as no one could assist us with whether our documentation was correct. The Customer Liaison Officer was glad to help, but ultimately left us hanging. The CEO secretary also said she would assist but ultimately we have had to go to the DoHA to sort out our own issues, not something you want to do if you are a single parent and have no one to watch baby.

The following Monday we went back to the hospital for my wife’s check-up, and again, Dr van Schalkwyk’s nurses were on point, very good. We then went to the Baby Clinic to weigh our boy, we were chased out of there and told that this should only be done at 2 weeks as he would have lost weight and that’s just the way it is, again, absolutely terrible service (trying to hold back the 4 letter words here). I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THESE PEOPLE. The lady did not ask us why we want to weigh him, she literally chased us out. Our reasoning for wanting weigh him was that he was born 2 weeks before is due date and had lost 400g in utero in the 10 days leading up to his birth, so we were trying to keep on top of things. What we did later that day was go to our local doc, he weighed in at 400g more than his day of leaving the hospital, so Annete and company, perhaps, besides working on your customer service, you should also work on your baby knowledge as this is frightening. We have subsequently gone to Stork’s Nest at Unitas, the service was phenomenal, so we will be using them from now on.

So all in all our experience was hot and cold, for future parents wanting to use this hospital, keep the below in mind:

Dr van Schalkwyk – Brilliant Maternity Nurses – Brilliant Baby Clinic – be very wary, especially when it comes baby safety as well as rands and cents as they will fight for every cent Maternity documentation – make sure you have your ducks in a row before arriving and leaving the hospital.

Should you have any issues, I would suggest getting to the CEO as everyone else promises to assist but ultimately fails in the short and long run.

Happy babying…