"A Tale of Two Wards"

They were the best of Wards and the worst of Wards! I cannot believe they existed within the same hospital. In Heather Ward my Uncle was treated with care, dignity and respect by staff working under a dedicated Ward Manager in the last two days of his life. Staff also showed concern towards relatives and kept them fully informed. However, prior to this in another Ward, there was no care no dignity and no respect. The Doctors did their best but other staff on the Ward were generally unresponsive and seemed to have been specially trained to ignore the pleading of distressed patients and visitors ("Keep your head down for long enough and they will go away"). A few staff tried to provide a decent level of care but the lazy ones (it was suggested to me that they were agency staff) and the poor systems and lack of management oversight appeared to drag the willing ones down. The Chief Executive and members of the hospital board should hang their heads in shame for allowing this to happen. How can you possibly allow a fantastic ward like Heather Ward run alongside a ward that would disgrace a third world country?