"My nan was discharged from ward 15 today"

My nan was admitted to ward 15 in St Marys Unit on the 30th March 2017 following quite a long health problem spanning over 3 years which her GP has failed to treat despite many appointments to her.

The staff at the ward were very hard to get answers from re nans condition we have had various diagnosis and every time we asked to speak to Doctors they were "too busy". My nan also has Dementia and is extremly hard of hearing so struggles to understand everything, but Doctors kept meeting with her when family were not around.

After 3 weeks of vague answers and the problem not being resolved, despite one doctor saying there was a chance of an operation, when mum visited today the discharge nurse and doctor told mum "they wanted her (nan) out today". My mum was quite shocked at how rude these two supposed "professionals" were. The doctor also said "people get sick but do not hospital admission" meaning my nan didnt need to come to hospital in the first place....if thats the case why keep her for 3 weeks and why does she now need to attend as an outpatient for the condition and possible have an operation if things get worse in the future.

We have been appalled over the past three weeks at the lack of care, compassion and dignity for patients. Nan waited 35 minutes on one occasion to go to the.toilet after calling the buzzer, i ended up going to the nurses station where they were just all standing chatting, still no one came after a further 15 minutes so i ended up finding a senior sister in the store cupboard and asked them to come, which they did.

One patient in the same bay as nan had spilt a whole cup of tea over herself and her bed and no one came to her for over 20 minutes. Shocking. What if there was a real emergency and theses patients had called the buzzers for a serious matter, this system needs reviewing urgently.

We will be putting our concerns forward as a formal complaint and contacting our local MP regarding the care of the elderly in this ward.

Just because the patients in this ward are elderly it does not mean they should recieve low quality of care, they are vulnerable human beings with feelings and needs.

Thankfully nan is home now with her family to care for her and properly monitor her and we know she is.safe.