"Poor quality of care"

My husband has liver disease and has been in Ward 27 at the Royal Alexandra Hospital on more than one occasion. He has a complicated medical history and has been in and out of RAH for the past several years.

The care is usually fairly good but on these last stays the quality of care has been very poor. Firstly, there was an unsettled patient in his room that was extremely loud and kept getting up and bothering the other patients, several of whom were in very poor condition. He was not under constant surveillance as I felt he should have been. It disturbed the sleep, safety and peace of mind of all the other men in the room. Being in the hospital, away from friends, family and home is stressful enough and has a negative affect on a person’s health, let alone dealing with an unsettled patient 24/7. 

The ward seemed very understaffed. While the staff were doing their best to serve and care, they were obviously under stress. The atmosphere in the ward was stressed as a result. Again, not the best conditions for trying to get people better. There were days when the poor doctors were still doing their rounds at 4 pm when they usually see patients in the morning.

Some members of staff were also quite rude both to patients and each other. On one occasion a senior member of staff openly scolded a colleague in the corridor, creating a tense and humiliating situation for them and those near. I do not have specific names but one senior member of staff lacks all bedside manner and comes across as quite irritated and demeaning toward the patients they are supposed to be caring for. I am not questioning their knowledge just their care. I hope they remember they are supposed to be caring for real, hurting people, not just clinical cases or symptoms.

I felt that the ward was also very sloppily kept with nearly overflowing bins, dirty bedding for more than 24 hours, continually dirty toilets in the rooms, and trays left at patients beds for hours. I also felt that the Covid measures for visitors were sloppy. I was able to walk right into the ward without being checked in or questioned about symptoms 9 times out of 10.

I think it is fair assessment to say that my husband was placed under much more stress than necessary for his stay because of the decreased staff and I feel poor management of the ward.