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"2 days with no food when recovering from anorexia"

About: Leicester Royal Infirmary / General surgery

(as a service user),

My son was place on an adult ward initially on ward 16, he was then moved to ward 22 as they needed his side room and the only other side room they had was on ward 22.

The first issue was having multiple bubbles in his iv, which the nurse just shrugged off and didn't seem to care. I asked if it was dangerous and they just shrugged at me, suggesting they didn't know. They were significantly sized air bubbles, not tiny ones.

My son was nil by mouth as he was awaiting surgery. He is currently recovering from anorexia, so leaving him until last on the list for surgery was a bad idea as he should not go this long without food. He went for his surgery around 22.30 and arrived back at around 12.45. 

He wasn't offered anything to eat after his surgery and went to sleep. He was woken by a nurse at 5.50 am by them abruptly turning on the big light and shouting out his name. He said he was hungry but he was only offered a cup of tea and a biscuit.

He said he'd like fresh air but was too wobbly to walk. I asked for a wheelchair, they said they didn't have one, we could look for one ourselves. We walked slowly to the lifts, went down to the ground floor but had to return due to my son's pain.

Breakfast came and went and he was offered nothing yet again. I requested for for him several times. Finally around 9.15, 47 hrs and 15 minutes since he last ate (bar the couple of biscuits), he was served 2 dry pieces of toast. He didn't have much of an appetite anyway. But this is not the point...all patients should be offered a meal after 2 days with no food, especially when recovering from surgery and anorexia.

I am very grateful to the surgical team for all they've done for him and also 80 percent of the staff were very nice kind people... but this experience has let the ward down as a whole.

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