"Experience never to be forgotten"

My Mother was admitted into the Borders General Hospital Scotland for a biopsy, to stay overnight but ended up contracting Sepsis/severe infection and was in for 8 days.   She was put into a ward with 5 other elderly females and in her words she felt like she was left there to die!  

The treatment that she received and others in that ward was appalling, no nurse helped any of them to sit up, or to eat and no nurse spoke to any of them or sat with any of them when they cried out for help or if they were in pain!   My Mother called for over an hour for assistance to go to the toilet, in the end she took off her oxygen and walked with her drip to the toilet where she fell and badly bruised her back and nurses only came when she screamed out in pain.

It felt like they then covered up Mums fall because there would be a report/investigation into the incident and also told my Mum that she probably would have to stay in longer because of it.   Mum was desperate to get home so that we could care for her so kept quiet about the whole incident.

The whole time my Mother was in that hospital not once, not once did she see anyone come into that ward to clean it.   The whole experience for my Mother was one of scheer horror, not all nurses are ‘Nurse Nightingales’ and this particular experience has left my Mother with nightmares over the treatment and happenings at the awful hospital.   No one spoke to any of those patients with tenderness and with a caring attitude or gave them the respect they should have received, regardless whether they were viewed as ‘dying’ or not.  

She has advanced cancer but will not go anywhere near that hospital again.   I feel those nurses need to be taken through retraining and taught how to treat seriously ill patients, and if they can’t show compassion and a caring attitude then they shouldn’t be nursing.