"Mum’s hospital admission"

Mum was admitted to ARU4 at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Glasgow after calling an ambulance on Wednesday having suffered symptoms of a TIA. 

The ambulance came very quickly and she was assessed by two very competent and kind technicians, Megan & Joe, who agreed that a visit to hospital was required. We had a bit of a wait on arrival at the hospital, but they kept an eye on mum and made us aware of what was happening.

Mum was eventually moved to an assessment area as she was next in the queue and I had to leave her there and go to the waiting room. I was told I would be allowed to rejoin her as soon as she was in a cubicle, but unfortunately this didn’t happen and we were separated for several hours which given her age(late eighties) and very poor hearing was stressful for us both.

Having said that, mum was well looked after and had blood tests and a scan and when she asked the doctor about where I was he came to the waiting area and called me through.

By this time we were told that it did seem to be a TIA and while the scan looked pretty good she would be kept in for observation at least overnight. Our only other concern at this point was that mum had nothing to eat or drink apart from a few sips of coffee.

After another wait we were moved to the ward, but unfortunately a room wasn’t ready so we had a wait in the corridor where a lovely member of staff who had been cleaning in the area offered and brought us tea/coffee and biscuits which were very much appreciated.

Once we got into the room a nurse came and completed paperwork on mum’s abilities/existing conditions and I left her eating her dinner.

Overnight mum had observations done and was relatively comfortable.

During her stay she was amazed and impressed by the treatment she received by every member of staff she encountered, everyone was friendly and took time to talk to her despite her hearing difficulties. She also said the food was excellent compared to what she had experienced in previous hospital stays. 

As a family, our only issue was lack of information as we couldn’t get through to the ward for an update and nobody called with any information. Mum is unable to use a mobile phone but did manage to communicate through her tablet which we had linked to hospital WiFi. She believed someone had called us with an update.

All in all we would like to thank everyone for looking after mum so well and particular thanks to staff nurse Nicola who explained everything to us on discharge, re-attached her tablet to the WiFi, listened to her life story (at least once) and chatted to her about the football.  Also to a doctor (whose name I’ve forgotten) who was able to update me on what was going on during a visit.