"Disgraceful waste of resources and unnecessary..."

My sister was sent to GWH by her doctor 5 days ago - she did not want to go and had booked to go away with friends during this period.

On the first day of admission she was sent to day surgery - thinking that she may be operated on - she remained there for 2 days - with no plan of action - and when I visited her she was sobbing and distressed with no water jug - and having not eaten for 2 days with no explanation as to why, but assuming she was due to for operation?

She was seen by 3 different doctors - who had no plan for her and the 2nd doctor had not even read her notes - as they asked her what treatment she had had so far - and knew nothing of the proposed gall bladder op.

She had many conflicting pieces of information. She was put on a course of antibiotics with no explanation and with no sign of infection - and had specifically asked not to be given the specific antibiotic she was put on as it had previously had adverse affects on her.

This request was ignored and when I queried this decision on her behalf - she was put down as having refused them - this was not the case - I just asked why she was given the only antibiotic that she had asked not be given re side effects.

The following morning the duty dr threw back her curtain and without saying a word of greeting announced in front of a room full of patients visitors and nurses "I hear you have refused your medication" - they then went on to publicly humiliate her by announcing loudly that her problem is that she is very overweight.

This upset her very much as she had been sent there as an urgent admission and 3 days later that was all they had come up with.

When I went to see her on day 4 she was told that she could go home (nothing achieved in 4 days hospital stay) - so she got dressed and packed her things - and was told it would take a "few hours for her discharge papers and medication" - 6 hours later she was told they wanted to keep her in for an extra night to see how her discharge medication worked - so she unpacked again and stayed another night - I have just had a call from her to say that 27 hrs after that decision - nothing has been done and they didnt even give her the medication that they wanted to monitor - let alone monitor it - she was told at 9am this morning that she was being discharged today - it is now 4pm and she is still blocking the bed and waiting for her discharge papers and medication. That is 5 days, - no treatment - no answers - bed taken up unnecessarily - and she will have to come back again for further investigations.

To say that this is a criminal waste of tax payers money - and to try and understand why the NHS is in gridlock crisis - I dont wonder - 2 patients in a ward of 4 beds spent a whole day waiting to be discharged - times that by the number of wards in the hospital - and then times that by every hospital in the uk and you are looking at literally thousands of bed blockers just waiting to be discharged.

It is a national tragedy.