The NHS failings

[Le Chat]

Reading in the paper and listening to Janet Street-Porter's account of her sister's treatment in the NHS whilst dying; I wondered if anyone else had a tale to tell of neglect or ill treatment whilst in hospital?

[LazyGun]

I am sure you will find some... but for myself, the experiences of my family and friends etc with the NHS, encompassing carying diseases such as arthritis, polycythaemia, MI, aortic aneurysm repair, mastectomy, pneumonia, cancer etcetc has all been uniformly good, with one exception. That complaint had nothing to do with the clinical treatment, but a complaint about lack of communication regarding the treatment progress and follow up.

[ummmm]

Yes....I have.

My Uncle got really sick very suddenly. He went from a healthy man to death bed within a week. He was admitted to hospital and they found quite a few things wrong with him. His body was basically packing up!

Once he got out of intensive care (2 days) he was sent to a ward. Due to the various things that was wrong with him he couldn't move his arms......They would put his breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table in front of him and leave him to it. Then they would come and take the untouched meals away and nobody asked why he hadn't eaten them. HE COULDN'T MOVE HIS ARMS. My sister and I had to go to the hospital everyday in shifts so we could feed him.....very sad

Then......after two months in hospital he was transferred to a different ward. The doctor called us aside and asked about his hygiene. He had body lice!!!!!!! We told the doctor that he was a clean man. The doctor said that as he had just come in he must of had them when he arrived. We looked at him with evil eyes and said........ 'he has been in this fcuking hospital for the last two months. If he has body lice then he has caught them while his been here'............The doctor came back and admitted that he had got them while in their care.

What a f ing disgrace!!!!!

They also left him sitting on the toilet for over an hour!!

In the end I spent four months going to the hospital twice a day. As did my sister and other family members.

God forbid what would have happened to him if he didn't have us.

But he is certainly worth every second of it and more!!!

[noxlumos]

I can only praise the NHS personally. I had TB meningistis and they were brilliant, they saved my life.My wife had an ectopic pregnancy and they were superb, however my wife's grandmother had dementia and was refusing to eat.The family pleaded for some help,none of which was forthcoming even when she had a sort of seizure which left her completely changed but still refusing to eat.Eventually in despair that she would starve herself to death the family took her to A and E and refused to take her home again.It was finally agreed that she should be admitted and they found a tumour in her oesophagus which they said was small and operable, once she regained some weight.No-one attempted to feed her when she wouldn't eat and she continued to lose weight.There were no beds available so they put her in the Tropical diseases ward!Understandably she was very confused and upset,but apparently they had no problem in letting her discharge herself and go home on the bus.She caught the wrong bus(obviously,she had dementia)and was missing when the family went to visit her that evening.She'd been wandering round the city for 8 hours,lost or left all of her belongings somewhere and was finally taken to a police station by a man who could obviously see something wasn't right.They had no apology(at the time)from the hospital who were reluctant to re-admit her as they believed she was only showing signs of "borderline dementia".They did re-admit her,after my wife shouted the place down,where she died just over a week later still not having been fed(she refused to eat as she couldn't swallow bc of the tumour)and they put on her death certificate that she died of cancer.
At the time my wife's family were so upset they did not kick up the fuss they should have done, but clearly that lady died because her family were not listened to by people who should have cared for her medically and so her care was neglected to a wholly unacceptable extent and she starved herself to death in

[NH]

Yeah. The disease I had treated me appallingly.

[Miss Inquiry]

Ny next door neighbour died at the beginning of this year, seemingly down to poor communication. She was a diabetic, and had been on a self imposed diet/missing meals etc, her blood sugar levels dropped dramatically and she appeared to be getting a bit scatty. Her husband was not aware of her missing meals etc, but he started to notice her eratic odd behaviour, leaving the gas on, putting toothpaste in the fridge etc.. after a few weeks of her deterioration he called the doctor, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital as his diagnosis was that she was suffering mentally. In fact it was due to her low blood sugar.
In the specialist psychiatric hospital she again refused to eat, no one monitored her eating, her blood levels dropped even more and she fell into a coma. She was then in a coma for a few months, transferrd to intensive care, and unfortunatly the damage done already was too much and she passed away. Had her local doctor liased with the psyciatric hospital, maybe someone would have taken more notice of the fact she was diabetic, and this could have all been prevented.

It's a horribly sad story, the negligence is still being investigated by the NHS, and hopefully this will never happen to anyone else.

However, I personally have been treated by the NHS numerous times and have nothing but praise for them. They deal with so many people a day, there are bound to be errors.

[Lonnie]

I've been treated very well by the NHS, my only complaint, was that for the last two nights I was in Hospital, I was moved to a mixed ward, belive me, if you've never experienced it, you can't have an idea of what its like, Demeaning is not too strong a word, for both sexes.

[China Doll]

NHS 'failings'?!?..... The majority of clinical (and indeed administrative) staff within the NHS are dedicated to their role. The main problem would be with managers/directors/DoH/ not exactly being the worlds experts in joined up thinking or indeed in some cases being so fast tracked that they have no idea what goes on in a clinical sense and so end up laying down policies an procedures which in practice increase work load and stress without any clear bennefits.

There are occasions where the NHS lets people down. But these are few and far between. When they happen they are beyond distressing and the outcomes can be disastrous. However these are few and far between. I'd really like to see some stories about how the NHS has helped and saved lives, about the commitement above and beyond the call of duty of some of the clinical staff and the fact that most nurses are paid less than train drivers to quite literally clean sh1t up. Unfortunatly the stories I'd like to see don't make the headlines.

It would be great just once to see the good that the NHS does. Especially now that we are in danger of having major hospital closures in an effort to save money and bring care in to peoples home. Another good idea... in theory. I suspect the practice will be interesting.

[Le Chat]

Many thanks for your answers. I asked the question, partly as it was on TV as I was getting ready for the day and partly because my son has had to have some blood tests. You would not believe the absolute performance, lack of communication and downright ridiculousness of the simple task of having a bit of blood taken. My Dr's and local clinic couldn't organise a nun bash in a nunnery. It makes me wonder how anything actually gets done, especially if you need to leave the Dr's surgery and go elsewhere. The communication system is a shambles. I can quite understand most of your the comments.