Now that IS bad!!!
It reminded me of the way an Indian colleague of mine where I used to work was treated when she had her first child - again in a large teaching hospital. Basically, the staff seemed to associate the fact that she was Indian with the assumption that as such she would be 'poor, downtrodden female who doesn't speak much English' - quite the opposite to who she really is!!
Her waters broke and she started having contractions, she arrived at the hospital, and went into an extended labour - a similar situation to Gill's neighbours story, the baby was large in comparison to the size of her mum (small build and only about 5 ft tall). She went for several hours with only gas and air - then the staff decided that they needed to induce her to speed delivery, they said in sympathetic *poor Indian woman, you're foreign therefore you must be deaf too* tone and volume! "We're going to break your waters now" - my colleagues response was obviously "Oh no you're not!!" (with a few expletives!), but they were adamant that her waters were still intact. It wasn't until a senior turned up that she was finally believed!
On another occasion (not related to pregnancy) she slipped down the stairs at work and knocked herself unconscious for a brief time so she had to go to hospital - she had a seriously hard time convincing the medical staff that she hadn't done it deliberately to avoid going home to an abusive husband!! (because *of course* all wives from the Indian subcontinent are in forced arranged marriages to abusive husbands, sheesh!)
momz - you don't get much choice of which hospital to go to over here, it's a case of where you live.
