"My father"

My father passed away late last year from a ruptured bowel bought on by a rare bladder cancer that spread around his internal organs and lymph nodes and blocked his colon. A bypass of this gave us an extra couple of months with him.

Unfortunately his final days with us were agony for him even tho he had an automatic driver administering a lovely concoction of drugs for him which should have been enough but was allowed to run out and then not re administered correctly and no matter how much I told staff the auto driver wasn't working, I was ignored and told 'theres nothing wrong and they are not allowed to give him more drugs, wait till the palliative staff come in on monday and tell it to them'. I wasn't asking for more drugs, I wanted them to fix the machine so he could just have the drugs the doc prescribed. 

For over 24h we sat next to my dad crying and screaming out in pain unnecessarily with the machines alarm going off every 20mins saying there's a problem and no one listening. 

Sure enough the palliative team started early monday and listened to me and got the faulty machine replaced but by then to me it was too late. The fight with the pain over the weekend had completely drained him of energy and once the drugs kicked back in he was out of it, Fighting for every breath and passed maybe 12h later. He was clearly out of pain by then but to me the physical stress was done and had destroyed his chances of a peaceful death. 

I never wanted my dad to be admitted to barnet for this very reason, that the staff don't seem to listen or care what you have to say and I have this opinion built from my own and my wife's previous admissions to this hospital on multiple occasions which have all been negative experiences ( 3 pregnancies and two surgeries). I know this is only 5 out many many cases. But 5 out of 5 for me is enough to feel bad about this place and I still do. I wont be using the service's here myself if I can help it. 

I still have nightmares of my dad crying out for help, begging us to help him, with words like -I dont want to die, please help me, what's happening, why does it hurt, help me- and its horrible, something I wouldn't wish anyone to have to go through. It brings tears to me just writing this remembering what happened.

Hospitals have been dealing with death by cancer for many years and this should have been routine to the staff here yet they messed it up big time. I am not suing for the neglect he received over that weekend as no amount of compensation could ever fix what he suffered. I just really hope they get their act together and actually start to listen to the patients and the people that care for them and not just assume they know best. 

I hope your at peace now dad. love and hugs from your family always and forever.

We miss you so much.