"Top class care in the community"

The Care nurses have been coming round on a daily basis for a six week period. When they were last here, they left this card asking me for my experiences. 

I was referred to the local podiatrist because I have a right leg with no ankle in it, and my left leg is shorter then the right. I'd been attending for an orthesis as the foot doesn't bend. There the local podiatrist discovered I had an infection on the tip of the toe next to the big toe on my left foot. This seemed very very curious, as there was nothing I could see on the tip, but when the professionals say there is something there, you say ok and you listen to them. They recommended I go on antibiotics, by IV injection for six weeks, seven days a week. 

So, I took their advice, and thats the route we took. Every day for six weeks, thats 42 visits, we've had someone come here into my home and made up the antibiotics. They left us with the ingredients and mixed it up as needed each time, and made sure the line had been put in properly and had been cleared, by passing saline solution in presumably. They would then connect it up, and started to put in the antibiotics in, it went in over a five minute period. It wasn't a case of just pushing the injection in, it went in over a period of about three to five minutes, normally around 4.

I had 42 of these injections, and we were well pleased with the way it was done. From the first week, the staff were all very friendly, all very helpful, all very keen to monitor my blood samples on a weekly basis - every Monday they would take a sample and test it, it would come back on the Tuesday and they'd tell you yes, your blood levels are coming down. They started at, lets say, '20', then they'd tell you that it had gone down to say, '18', so moving in the right direction. This went on on a weekly basis.

They also changed the line once, they had found it was leaking a very very little amount, and secondly put it in the other arm which made it even better because this gave me freedom to do exercises with my left arm.

So this is where we are, 42 visits are over, giving feedback about the Belfast area County Down nurses. There is a similar service in Antrim, over the lough, but they only offer this in tablet form rather than by injection. 

I kept a record of all the nurses who came and went. The vast majority of the nurses, 99% had all been in local hospitals and they had worked on wards for a number of years. They were all experienced nurses, and they brought that experience to the fore. They did say that they preferred this way, it allowed them to meet different types of people they could talk to, and they weren't being hurried along to answer the ringing of the bells, and people shouting. They much preferred it like this.

On a couple of occasions, the nurse brought along an assistant. The assistant would do the job under the nurse's guidance. One is currently at Queens hospital Belfast with only a number of months to go, another was doing a degree through Open University, in their final year. Yet again, they were very helpful, very nice, very attentive. This is true for all of the staff I saw, nurses and assistants, they were all as good as each other. 

I don't think any thing can be done better, though I have nothing much to compare it to. What I did receive was par excellent, I couldn't wish for better.

I thought the way they went about their work though, they were overrun by paperwork, it took up a good bit of their time. Say they were in for 30 minutes, probably more, say 45 minutes. Of that 45 minutes, at least 10 to 15 minutes were 1) preparing the injection, and 2) filling in all the details, who they were, my details, my blood pressure, pulse rate, all those things. All documenting what they were doing. They left me with one of those yellow sharps buckets for needles, so they wouldn't need to carry them away on a daily basis. All the stuff was put in there, and all the clothes they had were taken off, rolled up and put in a bag, and put straight into the normal bin. The hygiene of these people was particularly good, the first thing they would do when they came in was wash and dry their hands, it was all very good.

They were all top class.