"All Services due to hospitalisation"

Our 87 year old mother was hospitalised on Easter Sunday morning and although she has been in and out of hospital/respite over the past number of years on a pretty regular basis, she had not had cause to attend hospital or her GP (other than for her vaccines) throughout the COVID pandemic.  It was a shock for our family when she became poorly on Sunday and we had to call the ambulance service. 

As usual the paramedic attended first and was fantastic, the call handlers from the Ambulance Service were calm and excellent and the 2 Ambulance officers were also a credit to the NHS.  We felt reassured and not overly alarmed that we would not be allowed to be with her as we knew she would be looked after.  After not too many hours in A&E she was admitted to a stroke Ward in the Ulster Hospital.  We were allowed a quick visit that night and then afterward only one visit, for one hour, once a week.  Of course we understood but were worried about her not seeing us or fully understanding why and we too would be comforted by visiting her. 

I found out about Virtual visiting when i visited on Wednesday 7th April and we set up Virtual Visiting which was organised by two wonderful ladies in the team.  It was done via Zoom and booking was so simple. I received an email with the zoom link and i shared with other members of our family.  Lisa brought a tablet to Mum's ward, logged on and we all were able to see our Mum, laugh and chat to her and I know that both she and we were really happy to see each other. 

It is a wonderful service and whilst can never replace the face to face visiting, in circumstances such as this or for families who may live some distance away or cannot attend due to their own health issues, etc the Virtual Visiting is definitely something that think we would definitely wish to avail of and keep using.