During a 6 week admission to hospital we wished to wash and look after my father's personal clothes. Was was not a vain man, but he was a man that was attentive to his appearance throughout his live and this was important to us that he continued to feel comfortable in his personal clothes.
My father was being cared for in a single room and he had a wardrobe in the room. Despite that, during the entire time of he was in hospital, not once were his clothes collected without clothes belonging to another person also being in the bag. This was pointed out to staff every single time (over 20 times in total) when clothes were returned and the importance of this to my father and his family was discussed, but nothing changed.
Several times I visited by father and he was wearing someone else's clothes, it go to the point where I would ring the staff to check he was wearing his own clothes before taking another family member to visit. And even with that, on two occasions I had to asked for his clothes to be changed as they were not his, when I arrived at the ward. Indeed, the day he was discharged to a nursing home from the hospital he had another person's coat on.
The central question being asked by all family members was if the staff cannot manage to get his own clothes into a bag, what else are they not doing correctly. The confidence in staff in the unit was seriously undermined by this consistent failing and is now the key memory of my father's time in this ward.
"How difficult is it to get personal clothing right?"
About: Waterside Hospital Waterside Hospital Londonderry BT47 6WH
Posted by SeeHim (as ),
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