On 01/12/2011 19:44, Dave Cornwell wrote:
Lawrence13 wrote:
I have suffered that scenario Lawrence, in fact with both my parents,
while in hospital, shortly before they died. I felt exactly the same as
you. There are incompetent people in most jobs. I did, however, come
across some wonderful and caring nurses, that against all the odds,
seemed to bring a ray of sunshine to their patients. That's how they all
should be.
Dave

Three years ago my mother was also treated with a lack of care in
hospital, not medical attention - a lack of human kindness.

In her last few days of life she was isolated in a room (unidentified
infection) wearing a CPAP hood (continuous positive airway pressure) to
aid her breathing. Mum's lungs were badly damaged due to a rare form of
pneumonia and her body was fast fading, due to the effort to breathe.

CPAP hoods are noisy contraptions and she was hard of hearing. Yet the
nurses would enter her room and stand at the end of her bed to ask if
she needed anything. From Mum's perspective all she can see is some
young nurse lips moving, as she strains to hear through the noisy
contraption that was trying to keep her alive. She continually explained
to them that they needed to talk through the porthole in the hood so she
could understand them, to no avail sadly.

Looking like something from Bleep and Booster, it was difficult to get
her to eat but she loved their hi-energy ice cream because it soothed
the drying effect of the CPAP hood. Yet they rarely had any...

I will never forget the look in her eyes as she explained to me how
uncaring the staff were and how she felt guilty when she had to ring the
bell because she needed assistance to toilet.

God help anyone that enters an NHS hospital nowadays - I am dreading it.

It occurred to me when typing this that I should volunteer as a patient
helper - if there is such a thing. I cannot find anything on The Royal
Hospital - Chesterfield website. I've emailed them and asked.


--
Wendy Tinley
Sheffield