"My elderly Father received tremendous care in the end"

My father was admitted to Monklands A&E a number of weeks ago after a fall at home. My Mother & I both went to A&E with him to be told no one could come in due to coronavirus. At this we were terribly sad,annoyed & worried. The staff on A&E reception were not the most compassionate people I must say. Now looking back on it I understand they may be tired of telling people this and turning them away,but I feel they could have some respect and compassion when doing so. 

We got the news that my father would be kept in to run a number of tests and he would go to a frailty unit. I am unsure of what ward this is, as when I called the frailty unit I felt I was spoken to like a second class citizen. On my fathers notes it clearly states I am his first point of contact as my mother is hard of hearing. I was told the unit need this in writing? Never in all my parents stays in hospital have I heard this. I asked if it was possible to speak to dad and was told they don't offer this service & I would need to provide a mobile phone for him. 

A couple of days went by and a lovely young staff nurse Called Claire from Ward 20 called to say my father had been moved to her ward and they would now be looking after him. She ran through who the consultants were who were looking after him, the ward manager (after I explained about the frailty unit) and told me when is the best time to call for updates etc. 

Mum & I felt so much more positive about dads stay in hospital.  As the days went on we were now in day 6 of Dad being in hospital & it was taking a strain on mum not getting to see or speak to him. I called around 8pm for an update and was speaking to a lovely clinical support called Ashley, I was advised the nurses were doing a drug round but she would ask if there was anything I had to be told. So she did this and passed some information on to us. During the call I was expressing how worries we had been about Dad and not seeing or speaking to him. Ashley then offered us a number of options, bedside phone, zoom call or FaceTime. Mum & I were beside ourselves that we could see & speak to dad. It took us around 5 minutes to get it all set up and working and boom we were on FaceTime to dad who by this point we hadn't seen or spoke to in 8 days. Ashley told me she was on for the next few nights so If i called at the same time each night she would get it set up for us. 

Although dad is in his late 80’s he never misses a trick and is very quick & Witty. So he had been telling us about everything that had been going on. He advised us that he had been working with physio and walking with a zimmer now. Dad expressed how everyone in the ward had been great, he even got a wee sing song with one of the woman looking after him. We were on the call for about 20 minutes with dad. The girl left us to speak on our own accord and told Dad to Press his buzzer when he was finished. 

Each day after this we spoke to many different ladies in the ward; Nadia, Liz, Sincy, Lesley & Janet are some of the names I remember. We had numerous facetimes & mum had bedside calls with dad. But each and everyone of you have been a credit to your ward manager, whose name I cannot remember now. Dad is totally singing ward 20’s praises and says He didn't feel alone once when he was in the ward as there was always someone popping in the room to do something. 

His words are ‘those lassies never get a minute always on the go & busy doing something or helping someone. They deserve medals to put up with us old buggers. He would come back to the ‘penthouse suite’ anytime. 

I want to say a massive thank you to all the staff in Ward 20. You turned a negative into a positive for us as a family at such a hard time. We want to thank you for all your hard work you have been doing over the difficult months.