"Lack of care for a broken hip"

Contacting you is something that I would not usually contemplate as a means of complaining but I feel compelled to ask for your assistance or at the very worst to let you know that I feel that the NHS is failing to provide a service of care and compassion.

My sister is in her fifties and has broken her hip. She fell late last year and it took 5 months of regularly visiting her local GP in pain until she was eventually sent for an X-ray via Ayrshire Central Hospital in May, only to be phoned by her GP two days later and told that she had indeed broken her hip.

My sister works hard in her local supermarket and continued to work throughout this time, having been led to believe the pain was a muscular injury! She is also a widower, having lost her partner and father to her young son at the time, in around five years ago to a sudden and fatal heart attack. He was in his early forties. She has to work to earn a living but has been told under no circumstances by her orthopaedic surgeon at Crosshouse Hospital to work due to her broken hip and was subsequently signed off work by her orthopaedic consultant in May. 

On the advice of her GP  she was told to go immediately to Crosshouse Hospital last week due to severe swelling in and around the area of the broken hip, from her thigh to her buttock. She was told that the on-call orthopaedic surgeon would be waiting for her arrival. We spent 2 hours being sent from X-ray to the new ACU department onto A&E to eventually see a doctor who after waiting for 5 hours, eventually admitted her.  She subsequently had an ultrasound where they established that the swelling was soft tissue oedema due to the damage caused by the broken hip.  She discharged herself after two days having spoken to a doctor who told her nothing more could be done and to wait until her planned appointment with the orthopaedic consultant three weeks later. She still has severe swelling, very limited movement and can only move around the house with the aid of the zimmer that she was given in A&E. She lives in an upstairs flat with no lift and has stairs to her front door therefore rendering her a prisoner in her own home. She still cannot earn a wage and her house is now in jeopardy as she is struggling to pay her mortgage to keep a roof over herself and her son's. Her employer only paid her 2 weeks' pay and she is now relying on state sick pay. The doctor in A&E told us that her broken hip is not a life limiting emergency which in general terms is correct but her mental state at not being able to work, the worry over her financial affairs and the pain caused by living day to day with a broken hip is causing her mental angst and the family are becoming increasingly worried about her mental state as she tries to juggle bills and endures sever pain on a daily basis.  Surely she can’t be left to accept this? I have decided to turn to you for help on her behalf as she feels like she has tried every avenue and has given up. She has been told she will need surgery and a hip replacement but has been given no time scale for this to happen and there seems to be no sense of urgency meanwhile my sister's house is slipping out her grasp.