My baby and I just spent a few days in a public Spanish hospital and I was surprised that there was no bed or couch for the parent to sleep on, just a very uncomfortable chair that reclined a little bit but not enough to be comfortable. I basically could not sleep until 4am. I cannot imagine spending several days like this.
They also would not give me either a pillow or a blanket to cover with. We also had to share the room with another patient (an older child) and their parent and did not have a private bathroom, which is ok, but I was concerned about potential coinfection with something from sharing bathroom with the entire ward. The medical care was very good though. Is this also common in your country?
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From what I gathered, sharing a room with one other patient is the standard here. J believe bathrooms are usually in every room, not for the whole ward. The willingness to accomodate a parent varies but isn’t very high.
I only remember this from when I was the child in hospital in Belgium in the early 80s: parents didn’t stay the night with their child. They came only for visiting hours and left when these were over. There was no beds for parents in the room and we were 4 kids in one room. I don’t think parents were even allowed outside of those visiting hours. Not sure how that would go with really small children to be honest. I was 7 at that time.
Yeah, shared rooms, two or three to a room are typical and you are usually not supposed to sleep there. There are family arrangements in some maternity wards, for a fee that isn’t covered by insurance, usually. When I had to stay at the hospital at nine years old for a week or something like that, I was there on my own at night.
I’m in UK. I remember my brother had to stay in hospital for a few nights when he was 8 or 9 years old. He was on a ward with 4 or 5 other children and the parents slept on camp beds next to their child. I can’t remember what the toilet/bathroom situation was.
Over here, parents (one of them) have the right to stay with their sick child until they’re 15, longer if child has special needs. Unfortunately, our hospitals were built in times when parents couldn’t stay with kids, so sometimes there’s space issues. If there’s enough space or if it’s a longer stay, parents can get a bed, in other cases they get a recliner and if there’s no space at all, they decide who gets to stay based on the age of a child, sickness and how far away parents live. I don’t know how many beds one room has. When I was a kid, it was from 1-4, I know younger kids had 1-2. But no idea how it is now.
When I went to the hospital (Italy), as a kid, I was in a shared room with 3 other kids + respective parents. My mom was sleeping on an armchair next to me. I was supposed to stay only few days (it was the appendix) but I had some troubles and I ended up staying a whole week.
For those cases of more serious illness and longer stay, sometimes they give a bed to the parent.
It depends on the hospital and even on the unit within hospitals.
But as parents are not only allowed to but expected to stay with their young children to care for them, most units will have facilities to accomodate their sleeping (ie a bed), even if what they offer is essentially co-sleeping in a single bed. It is not unusual that they have a proper bed for the patient and a less ideal couch-bed or daybed for the parent.
Some places will offer single rooms while others dont have that capacity. As a very general roule of thoump I think they prioritice single rooms higher for units with longer hospital stays and less so for units with expected shorter stays.
My oldest child is born 3 months premature, so we spend a few months at the NICU. For most of that stay we had a single family room with space enough for the child and both parents to stay overnight, even if it was quite cramped. There was even a shared patient kitchen where we could prepare meals and eat and with some play facilities for older siblings. But not all hospitals are as generously equipped.
Most hospital units with stay over opstions will have a bathrooms for each room (sometimes shared between two rooms with entrances from each room), this is not only for convenience but also to minimize infection risk.
We live in Switzerland, my child was hospitalized at the age of 4. We had a single room although our insurance was for a shared room. I got a foldable bed and we could manage to stay by the kiddo’s side 24/7 together or taking turns
He was admitted on suspicion of meningitis which fortunately was not true. It’s probably also the reason why we had our room.
Given his age and condition I could not have imagined leaving him alone. I would have slept on the floor if I had to
We got excellent care
I had an appendectomy in Sweden when I was a child in the early 2000s and I remember sharing the room with my dad (and later my aunt since we were visiting relatives in Sweden). My nephew also had to stay in a hospital for long periods of time and he was always sharing the room with one of his parents. In both cases, they were single rooms and parents had their own beds. While these are the only examples I have, I’d say this is pretty common.
I’m old and Eastern European, so back in my day parents were barely allowed in during visiting hours. From what I remember of my little brother being in hospital in Germany, even the parents of the littlest patients didn’t spend the night. But that was back in Ye Olden Days.
Depends on the hospital, and the age of the patient, and why they are in the hospital. But also most hospitals have a Ronald McDonald house nearby where parents can stay for days or even weeks.
OP says that they had to share the bathroom, but you share it with the family in the same room, not a public bathroom outside. Which is completely normal in public hospitals all over the world.
Last year my child (toddler 1.5yo) was hospitalised in Spain and we were lucky to not have to share the bedroom because she had atypical pneumonia but we slept on a lounge/chair and they provided sheets and a pillow for us to sleep in.
It wasn’t the most comfortable experience, but it was 100% free and with an excellent team of professionals, still I wouldn’t want to repeat the experience for obvious reasons.
Shared and you cannot stay overnight. There are visiting times during the day.
Shared rooms with armchairs for parents. Usually those armchairs turn into beds and are not provided with any sheets. The greatest improvement is that you can stay with your child in the hospital because it weren’t always like this…
If you shoud stay for a night there will be bed (+blanket+pillow). Mostly there are shared rooms for 6+ people but sometimes you can also get room for 2 or even a personal one, depends where you get medical treatment and your diagnosis.
Getting patient in such position will be probably considered breaking the law and finable, at least.
I had a pull out camp bed for my 2yo. we were in a ward of 8 beds.
In Russia you are now allowed by law to stay with your hospitalized child, but the amenities are usually just as limited as in the Soviet times: no bed of your own, you have to go to the child-sized toilet, at least you can now buy food for yourself in the canteen.