Birth ordeal couple hit out
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A CAITHNESS mother who gave birth in a lay-by when she was being taken by ambulance to hospital in Inverness, described the experience as the worst of her life.
Lee McPhee (32) and her 39-year-old husband, Gary, of Traill Street in Castletown, are delighted everything turned out well and their daughter, Larissa, is none the worse for what was a traumatic ordeal.
But the couple, who have six other children, say it could so easily have been different.
“Gary could have been sitting here with a newborn bairn in his arms and six kids to look after and no wife to support him,” Lee said in an exclusive interview with the Caithness Courier this week.
“It is the worst thing I have ever had to do. I would gladly have had 30 babies one after another rather than go through what I had to go through.
“There is no way I would want to do that again. You don’t know what is going to happen in labour. It is unpredictable as it is without adding the unknown and the unexpected.”
Lee fell and broke her leg when she was 20 weeks pregnant. Fortunately, she and her baby were okay but she had to take medicine to prevent blood clots. She also had problems with a low iron count.
“I was worried I might lose blood because of the earlier medication. My main concern was if I started to bleed in the ambulance and they did not have blood to put back in me. If that happened I might never have seen my baby again,” she said.
Lee was scheduled to have her baby in Raigmore Hospital in Inverness because she was around 12 days overdue. But when her contractions began at around 5.40am on Tuesday, November 15, Gary drove her to Caithness General in Wick, where they assumed the baby would be born.
She was examined but told she would still have to go to Inverness. Her husband was asked if he could take her there but he was unable to do so as he had to look after the other children, who are aged between 15 years and 21 months.
An ambulance was summoned and Lee, accompanied by a midwife and paramedics, set off for Raigmore about 1pm. The young mother, who was having contractions every five minutes, tried to remain calm and cope with the situation with the help of the midwife, who had just taken up her post in Wick and was carrying out her first delivery.
“I was sitting upright to try and deal with contractions. There was no bed in the ambulance, just two seats and an incubator. I thought I might have to have the baby on the floor,” said Lee. When the ambulance stopped at Golspie to change drivers, the midwife asked if she could get a bed at the Lawson Memorial to examine Lee but it was not long until they were on their way again.
“I felt we were not wanted there. They could not get us out of the door fast enough,” she said.
Lee was taken in another ambulance which had a bed while the ambulance with the incubator followed behind.
But they only had only travelled 10 miles when she gave birth. Her daughter was born in the ambulance in a lay-by near the Nigg roundabout at 3.56pm.
The baby was none the worse for her ordeal although it was later discovered she has a heart murmur and is to be referred to a ?specialist.
“It was very cold that night. The baby was covered in foil but there only seemed to be one dry blanket in the ambulance to cover us both. The other ones were damp,” said Lee.
She and Larissa were taken to Raigmore where the baby was checked and Lee was taken to theatre about 7pm to remove her placenta. “I could have crawled up and died then because I was feeling so crap,” said Lee. They got home the following day.
“I was in two hospitals that day but ended up having my baby in the back of an ambulance,” said Lee.
She is to contact Caithness General about what happened and would like an apology from NHS Highland, although she and Gary are very grateful for the work done by the midwife and paramedics.
The couple would have preferred if their baby could have been born in Wick like their other six children.
“We trust the staff in Wick 100 per cent. We have had no problems in the past. They have always been good before but, unfortunately, things did not work out as we wanted on this occasion,” added Lee.
NHS Highland’s head of midwifery, Helen Bryers, said she could not comment on individual cases due to patient confidentiality.
But she added: “If the mother wishes to contact us, we would be happy to meet with her and would investigate the situation surrounding these events. The safety of mothers and babies is paramount at all times and each case is individually assessed as to whether it is safe for the mum and baby to travel to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.”
She added: “As Caithness General Hospital in Wick has no adult intensive care facilities and no neonatal facilities, women who fall outwith nationally agreed risk criteria are booked for Raigmore.”
