SHOALHAVEN Hospital refused to open its doors to a woman giving birth late on Tuesday night because her husband had parked in an ambulance space.
Scott Morrison took wife Brenda to the hospital about 10.20pm on Tuesday when she was in the final stages of labour.
When they arrived at the hospital with the baby already crowning all the parking spaces near the entrance were full, “which meant I would have had to park on the dirt section towards the showground,” Mr Morrison said.
Realising his wife needed immediate medical attention and help to get into the hospital Mr Morrison took the only space available near the door - in the ambulance bay.
“I just thought ‘I’ve got to get this girl into hospital now’,” Mr Morrison explained.
“The logical thing to do was to park near the door because she needed to be stretchered in.”
Once at the door Mr Morrison had trouble getting the receptionist’s attention, until his wife placed her hand on the car’s horn.
The receptionist responded by telling Mr Morrison she would not open the doors for him or his wife until he moved his car.
While Mr Morrison had called the hospital earlier in the night warning his wife was about to give birth the receptionist refused to budge even when told the baby’s head was crowning.
“All I knew was I had a wife in a lot of pain with a baby about to be born,” Mr Morrison said.
He revealed his wife was “panicking a bit because she wanted to get in to where she knew she’d be safe, and where a delivered baby would be safe”.
With his wife getting more agitated Mr Morrison moved his car - to right outside the emergency department’s doors, which prompted the receptionist to fetch a wardsman from the emergency department.
“As soon as he came out we had doctors and nurses everywhere,” Mr Morrison said.
However, he was concerned it took about 10 minutes to get into the hospital from the time he and his wife arrived.
Once Mrs Morrison was admitted it took just minutes for baby Charlotte Grace to be born at 10.49pm.
“That was the urgency of the situation,” Mr Morrison said, explaining it was a whirlwind labour lasting little less than two hours.
The following day hospital officials apologised to Mrs Morrison. The couple has been asked to detail what happened for an investigation into the incident.
“Hopefully it will reduce the chance of it happening to someone else,” he said.
South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Health confirmed it was investigating the incident.
Ironically, the Morrisons raise funds for Shoalhaven Hospital each year through one of the region’s biggest Christmas light displays at their North Nowra home.
They take donations from visitors and in the past have even sold food to raise money that is donated to the hospital’s children’s ward.
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