"Serious lack of Staff on ward 45 was a dirgrace!"

On 4th Feb my elderly mother was admitted via casualty by her GP. The next day she was moved to ward 45, I was phoned by a senior nurse at home and told that my Mum had a bad chest infection but was expected to soon recover and needed to be moved to a more appropriate ward to facilitate this. In the next few days Mum did improve and her rehab and discharge were planned although she remained on ward 45. 5 days after admission I was phoned at home and told that my mother had suffered a fall while attempting to get out of bed .but she had been checked over and appeared ok she was suffering from delirium and was instructed not to walk about without support. During the second week of Mum's stay I became aware that there was a staffing issue, visitors arrived and began washing, feeding their relatives and changing bedding themselves because it had not been done by mid afternoon..My mother was confused and so was not a reliable source of info but I noted that the staff were constantly distracted from finishing there tasks and constantly disappeared and there was never anyone to ask about Mum's condition. On Fri 14th several visitors were upset about the state of their relatives and one of them took photographs the senior nurse appeared and apologised to us profusely saying that they were behind with everything including the drugs round because they were so short staffed.My mothers condition gradually deteriorated over the weekend and on Sunday I arrived to find her breathless, cold and confused sat in a chair wearing only a hospital gown. By Monday my mother was confined to bed on Oxygen and a drip the mask was on her head so was not helping she was obviously very ill. I went to search for any one to help or explain her condition, to no avail, there was no one I spent 2 hours there eventually her drip ran out and a nurse came to check on her, she said that she wasn't qualified to replace it. I could not find any one at all exept a nice care assistant who tried to help. During the night my mother died from Pneumonia.