Mother in law is in hospital, admitted over a week ago for a blood pressure reading so much off the scale that the first doctor thought his machine had broken, we had really taken her in to have a suspcted fracture investigated. 4 days later a fracture in a bone in the wrist was reported along with the statement that they 'wouldn't be doing anything with it as it appears not to hurt her'. Meanwhile we waited 6 days for a 24hr heart monitor which we were told on admission would be required. On Saturday came the news that the heart test was fine but they couldn't do any other tests now because of the Bank Holiday, the doctor would probably order some more on his return on Tuesday. If pat experience tels us anything then it will be Friday before these tests are carried out. By then MIL will have been 'in' 2 whole weeks. No wonder they are short of beds. The whole NHS process grinds slowly on with no sense of urgency or even regard for the patient's well being. We have ben concerned about her lack of eating and drinking. No-one encourages her to do either outside of the family who have devised a rota to ensure there is someone present at the evening meal time. the main meal of that day is at lunchtime and visiting is not allowed. Daily she reports she 'ate nothing/ didn't like it/couldn't be bothered' or even on a couple of occassions 'didn't get any pudding/they forgot me/I didn't have a fork'. Add this catalogue to the day I discovered a jug of water out of arm's reach and no glass no wonder this lady is losing weight and de-hydrated.
A request to the ward sister to monitor her eating and drinking as we felt this to be a problem resulted in a lovely record sheet being pinned to the bottom of the bed first thing in the morning. There were columns for description of food/drink, amount given, amount eaten and overall comments. Trouble is at 5pm the whole sheet was blank, no one had bothered to use it.
If the NHS were school project the marks would be as follows:
Knowledge: 5/10
Interest in subject: 1/10
Effort: 0/10
Some interesting ideas were put forward at the outset but the project failed to follow through and almost no written work was submitted for evaluation. Must try much harder.
OK, I joke but this is an elderly lady's life at stake here and from where I sit no one is very interested at all.
2 comments:
Sad to say this seems to be par for the course now. My mother was treated similarly -- even though she was dying from cancer --- and my father who had dementia. We had to keep a constant watch, feed her, take food in, clear up the mess that was left all round her bed.
The whole system seems to have broken down and good old fashioned common sense about how to care for people has gone out the window as an obsession with budgets and bureacracy has flown in
Hi there,
I'm sure the experience with your own mother and Dr Crippen's blog should be enough for you to know by now that this is how the (failing) system works. I'm surprised they don't let visitors in at lunchtime- surely there must be a way around that?
My colleague's elderly father is ill in hospital too and her (or one of her siblings) is there 24/7 to make sure he eats and things like that cos' they know the nurses wont take the time to take proper care of him (not necessarily their fault as they're so understaffed and overworked).
Would it be possible to hang a bag within reach by her bed with water/smoothie and snacks for her to have during the day? In these situations the onus is on the patient's family to take matters into their own hands cos' we know we can't rely on the hospital staff to take responsibility as they're paid to fill tick sheets and stay up to date with their IT systems. Basic things like feeding patients or taking them to the bathroom gets left.
I'm not trying to trivialise your situation at all. You are right and hospitals shouldn't be run that way but unfortunately they are and it's left up to patients and their families to pick up the pieces rather than the hospital or government holding anyone accountable.
Neelu
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