"My mum's care"

My mum was a patient in ward 7 RAH for almost 3 weeks. Mum rang me after a few days really upset saying she had buzzed  4 times to get help going to the bathroom. She was upset as nobody came and she had an accident in bed. This was a recurring problem.

My sister was visiting and asked someone if they could help mum to the bathroom before dinner. They replied yes we have 5 minutes before dinner comes. I got a call from mum and she was crying saying it’s terrible she wouldn’t help me. The person she was referring to was serving dessert and said to mum repeatedly do you want crumble. Mum replied no I really need to go the bathroom now I’m going to have an accident, the response she got was just eat your crumble. As a result of this mum did have accident and felt absolutely humiliated.

It was a lovely nurse who saw mum distressed and helped her to the bathroom and got her cleaned up. This was absolutely unacceptable.

Mum is not incontinent, however she does have a broken pelvis and needs help. Whilst I totally understand mum is not the only patient to be looked after and that the staff are really busy, I do not understand how it can take over an hour for someone to get to her.

Mum also asked for Gaviscon as she had terrible heartburn and also for her blood sugar to be checked as she’s diabetic. It took them 3 days to act on this and that was only when I asked them about it. Her nurse told me yes she mentioned last night about heartburn when I asked did they give her anything they said well no she was holding her side I didn’t think it was heartburn, but the day shift said she was complaining of heartburn too. I asked did they give her anything for it, and they said no.

Her clothes and shoes also went missing. I also enquired about that and was told we will check with ward 23 as that’s where she had been before ward 7. No belongings were returned. As you can imagine, being in hospital is stressful enough for patients and their family without having all these incidents adding to it . Most of the staff are lovely and go above and beyond for the patients, but unfortunately they’re not all as kind. 

Mum buzzed for help to get to the bathroom. 2 members of staff were there but rather than one standing behind mum to help steady her they both stood in front of her Zimmer. Mum was unsteady and as she got out of bed to reach her frame she fell straight backwards smashing her head off a unit. Had someone been positioned behind mum this could have been prevented and mum wouldn’t have a huge lump and bruised face.