Deceased Patients/family Hospital Privacy

[tali1]

I was visiting a friend in a hospital ward and another patient had died. Curtains were put across , we could hear the patient's family crying.This was for almost a hour
Isn't there a protocol for moving the deceased to a private room so the family can grieve in private - and not in a ward full of others ?

[woofgang]

There may not be a private room to move them too. Personally I have heard much worse in hospital.

[andy-hughes]

It may be a matter of time and resources - nurses are probably too busy with living patients.

I appreciate it is hard for all concerned, but it's a matter of priorities.

[pixie374]

Maybe it had only just happened? When I worked in hospitals, we moved them from the wards to the mortuary, so relatives who wanted to be with them, would be in one or the other.

[Barmaid]

No idea. We walked into the ward to see my father in law being resusitated (unsuccessfully). But to be honest, I think the staff have enough to do (shocking as what we saw was and it has had an awful effect on Mr BM) without trying to deal with the emotions.

[woofgang]

pixie, I think a lot of smaller hospitals no longer have mortuaries (or Rose Cottage as we were taught to call it in front of patients) deceased go straight from the ward to the undertaker.

[pixie374]

Quite possibly, woof. This was some time ago. There aren't generally many options of where to put someone who has died, if their relatives want to see them.

[naomi24]

I don't think that is unusual. Been there and done it.

[woofgang]

WARNING......tasteless humour

When I was working in a small local hospital, they switched from having a small mortuary/chapel of rest to direct transfer to the undertaker. I was having trouble finding storage space for equipment to get people out of hospital, commodes, walking aids and so on and this was slowing down discharge so I was told I could have the old mortuary and the chapel of rest fittings would be taken away but there was no funding to have the chilled storage removed. My assistant was very new to working in the NHS so I thought I'd better discuss the history of our new store with her and kind of break it gently.....she was fine with it so I said that the only thing was that the fridge had been left in situ. "Oh that's nice" she said "we can keep our milk and lunches in it" She didn't live that one down for ages.

[pixie374]

:-)

[tali1]

Just as a note the hospital was the QE built at a cost of £545 million