"We felt that we were the problem"

My mum was in the fractures ward with a broken hip. She initially had a severe delirium post operatively. 

The staff were too too busy. She needed the toilet and buzzed her buzzer but was incontinent by the time staff came. Sometimes we went out of her room to find staff but she needed the assistance of two so it was near impossible to get two staff to help. 

Family ended up providing personal care by default. 

We felt that we were a burden asking busy staff to help us. 

The first discharge option was to a nursing home with only weekly domiciliary physio/OT. This was the Northern Trust’s offer and was disgraceful, in my view. My mum was independent before her fall and would have never got on her feet again from a nursing home. We felt her needs were superseded by the need to get her out of hospital immediately. We had to refuse the nursing home care and felt bad as we did want mum out of hospital. We felt that we were the problem rather than the health service. The health service seems to put itself at the centre rather than the patient. It is busy, it needs beds, and so the individual patient is reduced to a number. 

On the day of discharge to rehabilitation, mum was moved to a chair (recliner did not make it any better) for several hours to sit waiting for an ambulance and was sore and ignored when she needed the toilet. She had a delirium that was resolving and this particular move did not help in that regard both in terms of the move itself and increased pain/distress. 

I complained to a senior member of staff but was told this was due to how busy they were. They did not apologise about the level of care till this was pointed out. I feel lack of care cannot consistently be attributed to how busy everyone is, although staff are obviously busy. It is somehow we are busy so this poor standard is acceptable. 

We felt my mum was treated like a number and was thrown out of her bed to an uncomfortable chair without a thought. 

I am sure this opinion will change nothing, such is the organisational culture. There are staff members who work hard and most (not all) try to be kind. It is a challenging environment particularly for staff on the ground.