I was in hospital for a week with pleurisy and was in the ward with all those old women. If I told you some of the stories of what happened whilst I was in there you would be crying all day- so I won't. Needless to say, when I came out, I wanted to volunteer to come into the hospital and talk to these patients who had no visitors, and to help them eat. SO many of them couldn't undo yoghurt pots, couldn't keep their food on their fork as they were shaking, didn't take their medicine with their meals as they spilt it whilst trying to reach for a spoon. It was just too sad. The hospital sent me a ton of paperwork and specified that it was a proper job (voluntary) and I would have to commit to regular days and times and agree to help in the kitchen and do whatever else they needed me to. I wasn't able to do that, so I ended up not doing the job. But I can't emphasis enough how SAD a place these wards are- and the one I was in had no nurses in- they sat outside in their station playing solitaire on the computer. As I got better, I was the one walking round and chatting to the old women, who wereclearly in there just to die.
I wrote an angry letter to the hospital afterwards telling them what I had seen, and got no reply.