"Don Baines Ward, Bognor Memorial Hospital"

My 94 year old father was transferred from St Richards Hospital for rehabilitation after having a fall at home. After about ten days I could see him deteriorating. I told the staff and asked for him to be returned to St Richards. He has a permanent catheter and regularly gets urinary infections. I was told he did not require antibiotics and that St Richards would not accept him. The next day I received a telephone call to say that an ambulance had been called because the nurse in charge had not seen him before but could see he was unwell. He was taken to St Richards where a serious case of pneumonia was diagnosed. The Doctor stated “Out of 5 he only had 2 chances of surviving due to his age”. He was in St Richards for just under a month then was returned to Don Baines Ward for rehab again, which I was not happy about. During this stay we had a “family meeting” to decide what was going to happen on his discharge from Bognor. The physio actually coldly stated she did not think Dad would walk again. However, before entering this ward he was able to transfer from his chair to bed and walk a short distance with a frame thanks to staff at St Richards.

Ten days later I was concerned about Dad having another urinary infection and mentioned this to staff, some of whom did not like being told that something might be wrong. Five days later I received another telephone call to say an ambulance had been called because his temperature had risen suddenly. I got to the hospital in time to travel with Dad in the ambulance and we went straight into the Resus Unit where they pumped antibiotics into him for urosepsis.

In my opinion and other patients and their families the rehab programme at Don Baines is not working. There does not appear to be enough physio staff to deal with the volume of patients in their care, so patients do not get the physio they need to get back on their feet. I also did not like the fact that the doors are locked outside of visiting hours and were not opened until the precise visiting times. Staff were eager to get patients in bed before 6pm regardless of visitors and visiting finished at 7.30pm.

It seems to me that a lot of money is being wasted on people being transferred back and forth between the two hospitals and the use of agency staff. The first time Dad was returned to St Richards two other patients from his bay were also transferred due to infections. The second time one patient told me that he had been in the ward one week and still had not had any physio. Another patient who was already in the ward when Dad arrived was speaking to a member of his family on the telephone which I could overhear and mentioned he too had not had any physio.

Sadly my father is now in a nursing home where he has to be hoisted into his chair, bed and wheelchair as he is now unable to come back home. So, beware anyone being transferred to Don Baines Ward.