"Good inpatient stay with some concerns"

I was admitted to RVH in July 2021. I had developed blurred vision in both eyes and after seeing my optician she referred me to eye casualty.

I was admitted to the short stay ward where I had an unsuccessful lumbar puncture and needed to have an xray guided one. Initially the consultant thought I had idiopathic intracranial hypertension but my csf pressure was normal but showed high levels of white cells and raised proteins.

I was admitted to ward 4E neurology after a CT chest, abdomen and pelvis showed I had a large amount of enlarged lymph nodes in my chest and needed a biopsy to determine if I had lymphoma or sarcoidosis. My vision remained very poor and I was assessed each day by ophthalmology. I also had chest x-rays, a cardiac echo, pulmonary function tests, daily bloods, 2 weeks of intravenous antibiotics as I had positive blood cultures.

I also needed a full body MRI but I needed surgery to remove my spinal cord stimulator as it has metal in it and was not compatible with the MRI scanner. After 6 weeks I was finally diagnosed with neurosarcoidosis and pulmonary sarcoidosis after a biopsy was taken of my lymph nodes and I was treated with IV steroids. I was finally discharged after almost 7 weeks.

I certainly could not complain about my care or treatment from any department. The nursing staff were excellent as were the doctors and health care assistants. The domestic staff were constantly cleaning and the standard of cleanliness of the environment was extremely high. All staff were friendly.

I did find that some of the nurses did not understand what I and other patients were saying. However some of them had not been in Northern Ireland for very long, and their knowledge and understanding of the language would improve with time. This did not interfere with their quality of care.

I had to retire when I was 45 from a back injury and I was a registered nurse for 25 years, my last post as a band 7 ward manager for 10 years. I was very impressed with the standards in ward 4E, from all the staff, the information available about weekly audits on hand hygiene, environmental audits, falls and pressure sores which are standard audits in all wards in all hospital trusts in Northern Ireland.

There was a high usage of agency staff who were block bookings and their standard of care was also high. I certainly understand the need for using agency staff due to the unrelenting shortage of registered nurses in northern Ireland.

There were two band 6 deputy sisters on the ward but no band 7 ward manager/sister visible the entirety of my stay. There was a band 7 sister for the first 3 weeks but unfortunately she never introduced herself to any patients and did not appear to be ward based at all.

As an ex-ward manager I think it is extremely important for the ward lead to be visible and accessible. I know I certainly introduced myself to patients and ensured I spoke to every patient each day if only for a few minutes.

During my stay visiting was reduced to one visit for one hour per week from a relative. I didn't find this to be a problem at the beginning as I felt too unwell to care but could see how much it distressed elderly patients. This could not be helped due to covid and staff spent time with those patients when time allowed.

The main dislike I had was being moved from bay to bay during my stay. I understand staff were trying to keep bays with more independent patients together. However on one occasion I was moved to an all male bay. I was not asked if I consented or even minded being moved to an all male bay and I did mind. I don't think mixed sex bays are appropriate especially when the patient next to me was detoxing from alcohol and was extremely confused.

The only issue with staff that I had during my entire stay was on the day I was moved to an all male bay. I informed the nurse looking after my bay that I was going to meet my parents and daughter to exchange dirty clothes for clean clothes and to see my father as he had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. I was off the ward approximately 20 minutes when the health care assistant came looking for me, to tell me a porter had arrived to take me for a procedure which I had no knowledge of being scheduled. I informed him that they had my mobile number if they needed to contact me.

I only got 5 minutes to spend with my family and returned to the ward. When I arrived I asked the nurse what test I was going for and they informed me that they just told me that to get me to come back to the ward. I was extremely upset about being lied to because at this stage I still had no diagnosis and any test was welcomed by me if I thought it would get me closer to a diagnosis. This upset me terribly and I ended up in tears.

No patient should be told lies. I told the nurse that it was a despicable thing to do and the registrar who was on call was extremely angry when he found me in tears when he came to examine me. I could have put in a complaint but decided against it as the rest of my stay was good and I didn't want one incident to mar my high opinion of the rest of the staff.