elderly in hospital

Tell you what, if anyone is unkind to me during my stay, I shall summon GNetters to my bedside. We would present a force not to be ignored. Watch out for flying bedpans!!!

supernana - polishing mine ready for action - not for personal use of course - just as a weapon

Here we go, here we go, here we go....!

Indeedydo...here we go! GN army of trifle with me at your peril persons are rallying to the fight the good fight...and sometimes, fights get dirty!

Very dirty if the bedpans have been in use as bedpans before being used as splatpans!

Oh Bags trust you to talk dirty

Stung into action by this thread. I work in health informatics, and care of the elderly is seen as something to be managed in patients own homes as hospital/nursing home care will be unaffordable to the nation. Yes it is technically possible to wire up your loo so that if you haven’t used it by 10.00 am an alarm sounds in a call centre. Would I have wanted that for my mother? No. Dignity is very important to us all, but even more so as you get older and you lose a lot of sense of respect and self worth. We cannot rely on technology to replace decent care. If my mother was unlikely to have got herself up, then she should not be on her own anyway. A call alarm by the bed, a phone on the wall prepr0grammed with my number, these put her back in control. A warden rang every morning to check she was all right, and visited if she was not.

My mother suffered depression, followed by Parkinson’s and then dementia, brought on by the drugs to treat the depression. She was admitted for respite to a local hospital. After a weekend home leave, we brought her back to find someone in her bed – the staff had moved her in her absence without telling anyone. She was lost. The following day I could not find her. I asked the staff where she was – they did not know. I found her hunched on the floor of the corridor, rocking in her distress. She had no idea where her bed or the loo were. I took her home. One week later one of the patients murdered another one on her ward. CCTV cameras? You would need someone watching them 24/7 and ready to leap into action the moment someone appeared in distress. That resource would be better used patrolling the wards and speaking to patients, addressing their concerns. We raided savings and she went into a nursing home where the staff treated her as a much respected member of the family, there was always someone checking on her, encouraging her to take an interest in life. She died there with dignity, cared for and well tended. They did not need cameras to snoop, just enough caring staff.

My father was admitted to hospital following a very minor heart attack. He had been completely independent, just come back from a cruise. I visited in A and E and he was laughing and joking with the nurses. I handed over his repeat order prescription list from the GP to the staff. I received a phone call from the ward later that day asking me to discipline him as he was being a nuisance. His crime? Getting out of bed three times during the afternoon to ask what was happening and when he could go home. I asked to see his drug chart, and none of his usual drugs was on there. The following couple of days he seemed drowsy and not himself. He was sitting in a soaking wet pyjama jacket with food down the front, an hour after they cleared away dinner. They blamed the drowsiness on a urinary infection. Bit strange for a totally continent man to get this? I looked at his chart – still none of his 11 usual drugs, but he had been prescribed the ‘chemical cosh’ prochlorperazine, to keep him quiet. He was beginning to suffer the side effects of this, jumpy movements that made him spill his tea, which distressed him. His urine infection got worse, they put him in nappies with no pyjama trousers and left him sitting like this in a chair. My 25 year old daughter went to visit him and he asked her if she could get the nurses to get him a bottle. She asked at the nursing station, they said they were busy, would get round to it. My father was getting distressed, my daughter went back again and asked if she could get him a bottle. They refused to let her, and said they would come when they could. Eventually he could hold on no longer and peed on the floor in front of her. That is her last memory of yher grandfather.

That night the patient opposite was visited by the consultant team during visiting hours, and in front of everyone told that he would have to give up his house, sell it and pay for nursing home care as he was blocking the bed. They swept out, leaving him alone in tears in front of all the visitors. The following day a home visit was organised for my father to assess whether he could live at home. Still suffering the effects of the prochlorperazine, although I had persuaded them to stop it the day before, he spilled some milk making a cup of tea. That was deemed sufficient to determine he could not live on his own. His drug chart now revealed that he was being treated for Parkinson’s, which he had never had. When I asked why, they mentioned the extrapyramidal effects, which they had induced with their own drug treatment. Still none of his heart and BP medication on there.

I visted the following evening and my father was axious and upset. I promised I would do everything I could to get him home with support. The staff summoned me for a meeting and told me that to send him home would cost social services more money... I said somehow I would find the means to support him privately. Still no sign of his usual heart, BP medication etc on his chart. I had requested the next day off from the PCT where I worked to sort out his care.

At 3.20 am I received a call saying his condition had deteriorated and the doctors were with him. I went to brush my teeth before coming in. Five minutes later the phone rang again – he was dead. The couldn’t understand how it had happened, they had assessed him fit for discharge to a nursing home.....
They had attempted resuscitation on an 89 year old with prostate cancer but it had failed.

I am a professional health informatician, I am well aware of all the telemonitoring devices being piloted. These projects aren’t cheap. I used to be a nurse, in the days when patients came first. All the technology and policies in the world would not have helped my parents. Web cams are for monitoring endangered species, not humans. But valuing their dignity, treating them like fellow human beings, not animals, would have made their last days so different. And I suspect my father might have made his 90th birthday......

Dear RAF, you're story is harrowing and brings me to tears. I am so sorry that you and your lovely family had to endure such terrible treatment. I can't find any words that would explain or rationalise how you have all been treated. There may be someone else reading this who can bring you some comfort or help you to come to terms with these experiences, but I am left thinking that all nurses should understand this is the consequence of them not prioritising their patients over all else, and the powers that be need to understand that their managerial skills do not lie in the ability to allocate resources, but to be compassionate and have the strength to ditch harmful policies when they learn that patients are suffering. I send my love and best wishes to you x

That's so kind Carol. I just wish no one else had to go through that, but I fear it is happening in hospitals all over the UK now.

When I was a nurse in the late 60s, we were trained that if a patient became upset and started crying, you swiftly pulled the curtains, put an arm round them and did your best to comfort them. Now I suspect nurses are told not to touch the patient except in the cause of one of their treatment targets.

Perhaps if we all bombarded our MPs with a demand that they read this thread?

Yes, I think we should bring this to their attention, and collectively via Gransnet may bring some responses. What do others think? Is this something we Gransnetters can do? It's easy to contact your local MP and I have always had a reply from the House of Commons - recently, when I complained about childcare costs and reduced child tax credits, I had two letters back from two different MPs.

Quote
A call alarm by the bed, a phone on the wall preprogrammed with my number, these put her back in control. A warden rang every morning to check she was all right, and visited if she was not.

Yes, my Mum had all this in her council pensioner flat in West Yorkshire in the 1980s and 1990s. It really helped her stay happy and independent. Eventually she got severe stroke related dementia and went to a state run nursing home where she was treated with the utmost kindness until she died aged 94 in 2004. Luckily she never spend much time in a hospital.

I think things have gone downhill since then. Is anything happening as a result of exposing all this? This thread has 11 pages of valuable insight into an appalling problem which simply cannot be allowed to go on. I agree with RAF, and I think everyone should send a printed copy of the whole thread (if this is allowed on the forum) to their local MP and demand action from them.

When any concern starts to go downhill the cause is always management. money does come into it a little, but a good attitude costs no more than a bad one. Nurses and doctors did not suddenly become indifferent; they reflect the ethos of their workplace. Change has to come from the top, because it seems that staff members who are caring and efficient just get labelled as 'soft' under current conditions.

MPs have email, you could just send the link, rather than the reams of paper, which I suspect might get 'filed'? :-)

Could we have some guidance from Gransnet, please? I would be happy to print off the whole thread and forward to my MP if permission was given by relevant people.

Lets get that done Carol

Good morning - I have asked Gransnet for some guidance, considering the very personal stories that are on here.

I agree with Glammanana Nobody knows who we are and there are many of us who will be I am sure happy to be named if names are needed.

Make the hospital culpable for the deaths of elderly when it could have been prevented.
I too trained in the 60s and would have been mortified to see my patients in this kind of distress.
I strongly believe that sick animals get more care and consideration than humans and that is reprehensible.
My thoughts are with you RAF

Thankyou to Geraldine at Gransnet for her reply:

Dear Carol,

Many thanks for getting in touch. By all means, do send the link to your MP. The stories are very powerful and they're anonymous, so we don't need anyone's permission; no one will be exposed. And those who have posted on the thread seem pretty keen to have the abuses come to light.

best wishes

Geraldine
GNHQ

I am sending the link now to my MP Paul Goggins and hope it's one of many from us Gransnetters x

I wasn't offended by you Happynana as I know you didn't criticise relatives etc. I was replying to a specific post by someone else,but I'm sorry if I didn't make that as clear as I would have liked. The perils of online forums....so many posts and so much emotion swirling around with this particular one. There is good practice in some hospitals and the hope has to be that the evidence of this good practice is highlighted because if one hospital can do it then all hospitals can do it. It doesn't cost money for one individual to treat another with dignity and respect. That's my mantra.

We seem to have the green light to alert our MPs to this situation. I have emailed mine with this message, If anyone would like to adapt it for their own use, they are very welcome.

"I am a regular user of the website Gransnet, which has a very active forum of older people (Grandads as well as Grans, and no need even to be a Gran or of grandparent age).

One of the threads on the forum has been on the treatment - and often terrible mistreatment - of elderly relations in hospital, and the scant attention that is sometimes paid to relatives' concerns. Some of the posters were once in the nursing profession themselves, and are horrified at the drop in standards of care. Money is not the answer. The root of the problem is lack of empathy with the old and sick, beginning at the top of the chain of command and reaching to all levels.

www.gransnet.com/forums/am_i_being_unreasonable/1188355-elderly-in-hospital

Can I draw your attention to the stories told on this thread, and hope that you will do your best to see that they do not have to be told again, but that action is taken to make sure they are not repeated?"

Great!
Here's the one I sent to my MP:

www.gransnet.com/forums/am_i_being_unreasonable/1188355-elderly-in-hospital?msgid=24776336#24776336

Dear Paul

Could you please look at this growing thread of stories on Gransnet website. It details harrowing experiences that members have recounted about the way their elderly relatives have been mistreated in hospital. The Gransnet members have decided to contact their MPs as we are all so concerned. We all have our own experiences of witnessing elderly people being neglected and mistreated in hospital. For myself, when I was very ill and unable to assist an elderly woman who was being neglected in the bed next to me, all I could do at the time was tell her relatives she was being starved each time they came along to visit her, and they took action to remove her from the hospital.

Thank you

Have composed my response to my MP and forwarded.

And it is coming out into the open now........

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049917/One-seven-care-homes-failing-elderly-food-water.html

What about a bit of random hospital visiting-keeping an eye open when visiting a neighbour in hospital- my feeling is that it's usually agency nurses who cost a lot more who are the problem, and let us not forget some old people are bad tempered and crabby not just because they are poorly but because they are like that all the time(not Gransnetters families of course)

Have sent this thread to my MP. Just a quick defense for agency nurses. At one home where I did some agency work (now closed) the residents were always pleased to see us as they said that they would get better care. The staff were all local to the area and spent their days nattering in the kitchen. One lady was regularly moved in a hoist from the day room to her room because they could not be bothered to transfer her to a wheelchair. I reported it to the agency, as did several others and eventually they had so many inspections that it closed. I must also add that I worked in many excellent homes where the care and the food was superb.