"Health care workers were very ..."

What I liked

Health care workers were very friendly and understanding. They were the only people that made any effort to help me and my family.

What could be improved

The people skills of one member of staff in particular were disgraceful. He was very rude and abrupt to all my family members and showed no empathy or understanding of our feelings or situation. My dad came into hospital with pains and after 7 days of hospital care was unconscious on his bed suffering from major dehydration where he had not been eating or drinking. We asked for a saline drip to be put on but were continually told that it would be done later by the night shift, and the nurse's attitude was very abrupt as well. When we continued to chase the saline drip we were told by her that we were placing far too much importance on the saline drip yet after being placed on one he made continuous improvements over the next 5 days until he could get out of bed and feed himself. There had been no monitoring of his food and fluid intake up to this point and under hospital supervision his health had gone serious downhill sive his arrival. This in itself is bad enough and would lead you to think that more effort would be placed into my fathers care and into their attitude towards us but if anything the oppsoite was true. We were made to feel very uncomfortable by the nurse and this one member of staff in particular became very hostile to my sister and aunt if i was not around.

In my job, I provide a service to my customers, and kow that if i behaved in this fashion i would be out of a job. I will detail more of my situation below

Anything else?

My father was brought into hospital with pains in his shoulder and stomach which has now been diagnosed as Pancreatic Cancer with secondary Liver Cancer and is terminal.

The reason for these pains was not initially known and after 3 days he had a scan which showed up a shadow over the Pancreas and Liver. He was then given a Liver biopsy to try and determine the cause of these pains and we were told that we would have to wait for the results before the Doctor could be sure and treatment could start.

We were initially told 2 days for the reslts but this was changed after the 2 days to 4 with the reason being that the samples had to be treated before analysis could take place. Meanwhile myself and my family were waiting and knowing nothing but fearing the worst.

After the 4 days had expired (which was a friday) i asked if the results were in and was told that they were not, and would probably not be until Monday now.

Unhappy but understanding i waited until Monday and requested to see the consultant Mr Assante. When i spoke to the consultant on Monday he told me that the results were not in and that we would need to get these before he could tell us anything concerning my father. He assured me in front of the ward sister and my family that this could be later that day and if not then, then almost certainly the next day, and definately no later than Wednesday. On Wednesday we chased the results and were again just told that they were not in. We were given no explanation as to why they were not in and were told that they would be in on Friday.

At this point we were all feeling very worried, frustrated and powerless.

On Friday i again asked for the results from the ward manager and was told that they would not be ready for at least two weeks. He did not check anything but simpley told me that in his experience these biopsy's took 2 to 3 weeks to come back. I tried to tell him what the consultant had said but he just kept repeating himself.