"Where do I start? Arthur Beattie (Deceased)"

Anything else?

I have to say first that my father spent his first two weeks at King Georges in the Intensive care unit where he received the best attention possible and I have nothing but good words to say about that level of care and the dedication and compassion of the staff .

Sadly when he was moved to Gentian Ward that was when the level of care diminished.

Firstly the ward was treated like a meeting place and a resturant for relatives at visiting times with some beds having more than six people around them at a time (most counted at one time was ten) this brought anguish,frustration and anxiety to my critically sick father, I complained several times about the level of noise and the smell of food brought in and was told that there was not a lot they could do about it .

One time he had his very soiled incontinence pants which had just been changed left on his feeding table and again I had to complain and get them removed.

On another occasion his urine bag was leaking and leaving a large puddle on the floor below which I pointed out to the nurse attending him ( I had to tell him three times before he cleaned it up and during this time he kept walking in it as he was attending other patients)

There was a wheelchair bound patient ( one leg) in a single room adjacent to the nurses station who frequently left the ward and went down to A&E outside ! and was begging! And came back bragging about how much money he was making. No contamination and infection issues there then ! and while we are on about the spread of infection very rarely did I see staff coming and going use the antibacterial gels that includes the round doctors and we wonder why the wards were closed several times due to infection.

We had a phone call at 5.30am one morning and were told that Dad had taken a turn for the worse and that we should come in, when we got there it was obvious that they were extremely short staffed (two nurses on all night to look after thirty patients) and what they really need was someone to look after my Dad because he was very fractious and had pulled his feeding tube out .We stayed with him all day while the staff tried to get additional help for the approaching night shift, I was ready to stay the night with him when at the last hour they finally got some additional help. ( we were there fifteen hours looking after him)

I had to tell a doctor inserting a cannula that I thought he should be wearing gloves his response was only if the patient prefers it , I then said again that I thought he was supposed to wear them his response to that was ,would you like me to put them on. (beggars belief)

I feel that all the good work in the intensive care unit was completely undone the moment Dad was moved to Gentian and I could write a lot more but it's getting too distressful.

I would like to add that there were some good caring nurses on the ward but sadly not enough.