"Tintagel ward"

My husband was taken into hospital in Dec, having been in previously at the end of October   with infection on his knee for 4 days. , being unable to walk on leg at all. Due   to Covid we could not visit. He had his own phone for the first few days   but it stopped working, after this it became impossible to find out how he was.

Some days you could ring all day and most of the time it was engaged   or just not answered, or if it was answered there was no one who could talk to you. One time when the clerk said the nurses were busy, I asked if they could ring me, to be told they don’t do that or they might forget, when I said politely how I was supposed to get them to answer again they put the phone down on me.

My husband deteriorated and became delirious   at times, I asked several times if someone could check his phone for me, there was no communication as to providing anything he needed, some dirty clothes   were supposed to have been sent to the reception when we dropped things off but never were, when we got his things home there were 3 bags with soiled pants and pjs in, , we eventually sent   a new phone which ended up in his travel bag unopened   , no one offered to let him use their phone.

When he eventually got his phone working, I spent all day waiting for him to answer   , it was not until midday the next day we got to speak to some one only to be told he had had a heart attack the day before, and no one had told us, it wasn’t till 1030 that evening they phone to say we needed to come down as he had worsened,   but he passed away before we got there. The irony of it is we were then allowed in the room even though there were other patients in there, I have no words to describe how it feels to think of him desperate   to see me and being alone   , completely let down. Cornwall was still in tier 1, with very few cases of covid in hospital then.