Hospital information leaflet!!!

[Ricard with an H]

When friends, acquaintances and those you bump into ask, "How-are-you" it's polite not to tell them the whole truth and you get into the habit. I did the same and got a similar response from the orthopaedic surgeon who did the work on my hips.
I was so keen to prove I was a perfect patient keeping myself as fit and healthy as was possible considering my walking difficulties I always greeted him cheerily and did a few squats. When your hips are knackered, squats aren't easy, I was determined.
For years until I was desperate and in a sorry-state they kept batting-me-back which may have been a good thing in the long run though in hindsight I could have done with the extra years of better mobility.

What about my A&E story then, no-one want to listen ?

[glallotments]

:D


What about my A&E story then, no-one want to listen ?

We're just waiting politely

[Primrose]

Fire ahead !

[Ricard with an H]

Oh------- go-on then.

This relates to a very painful experience as a result of a cocktail of prescription drugs, spending a lot of time laying down and poor diet.

Without the need for going into any further detail i'm collected by ambulance from my home. I'm in a lot of pain and fitting. The ambulance crew administer gas which runs out and they don't have another.

When I'm admitted to A&E i'm still in a lot of pain but no-one will administer anything to help for ages. After some time I get something and drift away.

I'm vaguely aware of being attended to at the rectum, then after some time when the the injected narcotics wear-off I want to go for a poo.

Nurse says I can't leave the trolly until a doctor sees me, I say, "I want to poo".

So, I get of my trolley but i'm naked other than this gown covering my front because they undid all the ties, no nurse around and i'm busting to go so walk through the A&E waiting area looking for a toilet with my whole body on display but my private parts covered by the flapping gown.

I find a toilet, let myself in and have an evacuation you could write a book about then start to pass-out, as I feel myself going I get up, open the door and fall into the corridor.

In hindsight all of this is funny coming from a pal who was sitting in the waiting area waiting to see how I am, I should never have been left unsupervised, I had been been injected with a narcotic to control my pain and was ignored when I asked for help to go to the toilet.

[Primrose]

That's awful. I think hospitals can often be sadly lax about ensuring patients' dignity is left intact. Occasionally we have to undergo procedures that are embarrassing to say the least but that doesn't mean that efforts shouldn't be made to ensure that no patient suffers humiliation that could be avoided with a little more care and attention.

[Catherine]

Primrose I agree with you. I was lucky as we have a private hospital local to us that takes NHS patients. I have been there several times. It is lovely (if a hospital can be lovely) you have a single room with a private bathroom and a tv. The treatment is very good and after I had come round from the op they brought me water firstly, then when I was okay with that they bought a tea pot of tea with cup and saucer and milk jug. Then when I was okay with that they bought me a sandwich and a yoghurt with another pot of tea. Unfortunatley because of my jaw problem I could not eat my sandwich so they brought me homemade soup and more tea.

I appreciate that other people are not so lucky.

[Westi]

Try working in the Circus! Everyone whose fault it really is passes it downward - but the further down it goes the less chance of getting it fixed!

Westi

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Westi, i think we all appreciate the Doctors, Nurses and floor staff. They must be more frustrated then we are, with the cuts and trying to implement the constant changes. It really is about constant money saving, not that i'm convinced constant changes actually saves anything in the long run anyway.

[Shallot Man]

Like most buck passing organisations, they are mostly top-heavy. All pruning should start at the top.

[Ricard with an H]

Without going into further detail, because of past experiences when I went into hospital for hip re-surfacing I was understanably concerned and vigilant.

I ended up making a complaint to the hospital Board about procedures that should have, but were-not followed resulting in patient safety issues.

The board tried to dissuade me but did eventually hand my complaint on to a senior member of staff who had responsibility in that particular area. My complaint was upheld and the issues were dealt with during my second hip-re-surfacing because I refused to have the procedure done on the basis of concern.

Every year there is a Patient Safety Congress, no nurse I ever asked was aware of it and none were encouraged to attend or even read the resulting lectures, this in itself amounts to negligence.

We now have teacher-testers and our doctors are tested. Nurses are allowed to wobble along as they see fit, and I mean wobble.

[Westi]

Ricard - nurses were not aware as not invited - not at ground floor level anyway! We are tested for fitness to practice every year - you have to prove your up to date (& each update has a test to pass) to re-register every year - & they call in people radomly to prove it!

Westi

PS - I don't wobble - walk briskly & upright but back gets a bit stiff now & again digging which might explain it! Every career path throws up good & bad but you can't judge every nurse by your experiences just like you can't judge every doctor! Test prove nothing if there isn't comittment!

[oldherbaceous]

I always have very special feelings towards nurses, i think it is to do with their caring nature when you are at your most vunerable..... but there again, it might just be the uniform...

[Catherine]

Really OH

[Ricard with an H]

I always have very special feelings towards nurses,

I also feel the same way, two points though; it's always the few that spoil it for many. And, nurses can be caring and negligent at the same time.

Doesn't matter is you're an electrician an accountant a nurse or a top flight consultant, it's you're duty to your client/customer/patient to keep yourself up to speed in a fast changing or even a slow to change profession.

They are there to care for you, if they don't give you water because of some convenient sense of loyalty to a system that remains 15 years behind the times and the modern information is available at the click of a button then no matter how caring, it's negligence.

The above paragraph relates to me being dehydrated for 18 hours for the convenience of the daily elective surgery list, after 18 hours without water I became confused with a massive headache. They treated my headache with codien which dehydrated me more and sent a junior doctor to unscramble my confusion. This doctor wasn't allowed to do anything about the, "Nil By Mouth" notice that had been attached to me 18 hours previously. Not even when i'm giving clear signs of dehydration.

The rules are based on 6 & 4. six hours for the stomach to clear food and four for water.

[Johnboy]

Reading this thread as one who has spent a considerable time in several hospitals, and that includes military hospitals, over the years and I do not recognise these situations.
The last time was only 18 months ago and the food was good and I was treated exceedingly well and I have nothing but praise for the National Health Service hospitals in this area.
The only bitch I have is the car park charges and visiting a friend in hospital yesterday cost me £7 for three hours two minutes. I was in a queue waiting to pay and I went over the hour by two minutes which cost me an extra £1. Sadly the hospital gets none of this money.
JB.