"Nursing staff have damaged my confidence"

After a failed discharge following emergency dental surgery due to infection and excruciating pain I was admitted to ward C22 from Surgical Ambulatory. 

The lovely porter helped me to get into the bed and it was a while before anybody came to check on me. The nurses there showed me no compassion and sometimes evening buzzing it would take a HCA up to 20-25 minutes to come and turn the buzzer off and then say she would bring a nurse who either took a further 10 mins or not show at all. 

Due to have 9 failed attempts at cannulation there was blood on my right wrist and forearm due to wear I had bleed out when the cannula wouldn’t flush. This was also on the wrist band from emergency surgery the previous day. The nurses didn’t change the wrist band nor did anybody clean the blood even though every time I was given any medication the wrist band was checked and the blood was visible. Due to being on heavy pain killers including slow release morphine every 12 hours and oral moprhine every four hours- plus being post op and very poorly due to infection and pain I was in no capacity to clean myself or the blood. In the whole time I was in hospital for 4.5 days I wasn’t offered help to wash, simply had a towel left at the side of my bed and told it was for if I wanted to take a shower. Of which I couldn’t even stand and was far too weak. 

I was made to feel like an inconvenience every time I asked staff for pain relief or cried through feeling scared of the pain I was in. I wasn’t able to swallow and when I was able to open my mouth enough to see white pustules at the back of my throat (bearing in mind I had a severe infection post op) I asked a nurse if they could have a little look and was told “no sorry I’m a urology nurse”. Surely you are taught basic nursing before you specialise? And surely that would need to be raised in my notes? 

When one of the many amazing max fax surgeons and doctors I saw whilst there who I cannot thank enough for their care and expertise gave me a pain plan of slow realise morphine tablets every 12 hours, amongst the other pain relief along side. I asked the nurse who came on after hand over to the night shift if they could read my notes and give me my next dose which was due at 3am to which they replied they would if I was awake”. Bearing in mind a surgeon had put a plan in place due to the excruciating pain I was in 24 hours a day that liquid morphine alone couldn’t control... I asked the nurse to please wake me up as it was important to keep the dosage going and I was told they would if they had time. Being so scared of missing the dose that was already wearing off at 2:30am I made my way unsteadily to the nurses station to ask for the next dose and even though I looked unsteady I wasn’t helped back to bed. 

I entered the ward with anti biotics I had been given post op as well as the cocodamol. I was left to take this myself and it was left at the side of my bed. I even explained to one of the nurses I was beginning to get confused with all the different medication but surely if a patient is on medication like liquid morphine then any other medication should not be left at their side for them to administer themselves? I feel like this was recklessly dangerous on their part as they wouldn’t have know how much and what I was taken. The antibiotics were only taken off me when I couldn’t even swallow them anymore and swapped for a liquid version, but only after the second day. 

During my discharge, the max fax consultant (again I cannot fault max fax for their care of me) prescribed me with pain relief for home and to continue on anti bitoics I had (that had been taken) as well as a medicated mouth wash (I also had post op) and a numbing spray so that I could clean my teeth without the pain. When the nurse came to discharge me they only brought the pain killers and when I questioned about the anti biotics they didn’t know where the other nurse had put them and asked me (which I wouldn’t have know) and then told me they didn’t know anything about the numbing spray and salt water would do just as well- last time I checked salt water doesn’t numb your mouth. After getting upset because this whole stay in Blackburn hospital had been traumatic even without the added operation and failed discharge, I asked this to check with the consultant. If it wasn’t for the one lovely nurse that had been present when the consultant was writing medication ready for discharge who confirmed what I had said then I don’t know what would have happened. I wish I knew this nurses name, but the only compassion I had from the nursing staff was from that one nurse. 

I understand that I may not have been as poorly as the cancer patient that was next door but the pain is something I have never experienced to that level of severity in my whole life before and to be treated the way I was by the nursing staff has damaged my confidence in Blackburn hospital to the extent when I have a planned operation in the next few months I will ask to have it else where and I would feel scared to ever be admitted into Blackburn hospital again.