"Lack of care & treatment "

It saddens me greatly to be writing about what I see as the decline in standards of care & treatment at Crosshouse Hospital. I should be banging a drum for the excellent work done there & my dad should be a poster boy for all that is good within the NHS, instead he will be remembered by us for the mistakes and lack of care & treatment he received before he died.

30 years ago he was given about 2 weeks to live, after a major operation & to the surprise of his surgeon (Mr Sugden, a man that our family will forever be indebted to, a man that was a God in the eyes of my father) he fully recovered. After this my dad wouldn't let a bad word be said about the NHS.

A few years ago my father had a routine procedure, when he contracted something we were described as "a bug in his bloodstream". They couldn't get the infection under control & after almost 8 weeks they had to transfer him to The Southern General for 3 & 1/2 weeks then almost 3 weeks at Kirklandside Hospital. When he was discharged he needed 24 hour care & we were told he would never walk again. With the excellent care from the ISIS Team, his GP & physio we managed to get him walking about 30 steps unaided.

Following another minor procedure he was sent home from Crosshouse with Campylobacter.

He recovered from this only to be admitted to Crosshouse with a minor turn. For some reason his medication was withheld, his heart rate spiked at 228, they gave him his meds & his heart rate normalised.

He was due to be discharged when he had a fall, they said he could have a brain bleed but they didn't scan or X-ray him, his was in a virtual vegetative state for 9 days, he picked up again, they said "he might have an infection coming on". They sent him home with E-Coli & to make things worse they sent him home with E-Coli resistant antibiotics!

He was readmitted & I wouldn't know where to start documenting the care & treatment (or lack of it) They failed to get the infection under control and he died. The nightmare continues, they wanted to issue a death certificate from a doctor that knew nothing about my dad & had only started that morning. I called regarding his personal belongings only to be told "he didn't have anything & there's no documentation on his possessions."

It breaks my heart to think my dad previously held the NHS with such high regard that he passed away fully aware of the mistakes they were making.