"Cleaning or lack of it"

I was hospitalised in March of 2008, I was in the Countess of Chester Hospital for 11 days.

During this time, I saw many patients in my bay come and go many of the sights I saw concerned me.

The first instance involved an elderly lady who had come in from a care home. She had been repeatedly calling and buzzing for the nurses throughout the first few days until they began to ignore her. Then when they did eventually come to her, I heard some of them shouting and spoke to her in what I felt was a very condescending manner. This happened when she had wet herself waiting for them to come. I myself experienced nursing staff taking hours to get pain medication for me as well as one doctor taking nearly 2 days to update my medications chart.

A second patient near to me had been in for major surgery and developed internal bleeding as a complication. Despite calling for the nurses and advising them she was in great pain etc I believe it took over 32 hours for them to take notice and get her the help she needed.

The third major concern I had was the lack of cleaning in our bay - I cannot comment on other bays however I have experienced similar things on other hospitals.

I saw a cleaner came in 3 times in my entire stay in March, only to mop the centre aisle of the bay and once, when a patient was removed into isolation due to an outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea, to clean the area where that bed had been. A patient next to me was very sick after coming round from an operation and the vomit was not cleaned off the floor around her, until she actually asked the cleaning staff to do it.

It does not surprise me that our hospitals have outbreaks of super-bugs and serious viruses when they don't seem to be able to do the simple task of cleaning.

Also I think our nursing staff should be able to take the time to care for patients, not being stuck doing what I think is the paperwork that the doctors and consultants dump on them.