I am Furious

On Wednesday evening after Brownies, Marion phoned her Granny to tell her that she'd got another swimming badge and then I spoke to Mum only to find out that Grandad had had another fall and the home had called out the Rapid Response Unit because he wouldn't let them help him up off the floor because his shoulder hurt and they weren't taking any chances incase his clavical was fractured/broken. My Aunt couldn't drive herself to the hospital this time, so said she'd call the hospital at 9.30pm to find out what was happening with him and Mum said she'd call me when she knew anything.

I never heard anything until Thursday evening. My Aunt had called the hospital at 9.30pm like she said she would and found that Grandad had only just arrived. The hospital is a maximum of 10 minutes away and he was in the ambulance on the way at 8.30pm - so where was he for 50 minutes? Nobody knows, they can't account for it.

Apparently at 1am her phone rang and it was the hospital asking my Aunt for the phone number for the home so they could ring and tell them they were sending him back home. They have the number on his notes, so why couldn't they look them up or call directory enquiries themselves? At 9am the home phoned to say that Grandad had arrived back at 4am.

I am even more disgusted with the hospital than I was at New Year when they left him fully dehydrated for over 9 hours before taking a look at him. The NHS are happy to do that to a 93 year old man obviously. They're not getting away with it, my letter of complaint is still in the process and the more they screw up the longer it's getting.

And this Government think it's a good thing to be cutting back on the NHS services. It's ok for them, they can all go private because they can afford it. No wonder this Country is classed as a 'third world treating country'. The lowest to diagnose major diseases and the slowest to do anything about it. For example a woman (from Kent) in her twenties had just had a baby and then diagnosed with untreatable leukemia and was given 3 months maximum and told nothing more would be done to help her. Her husband wouldn't accept that decision and scoured the internet for a solution. This woman, after having been treated in Germany for a very treatable condition is now fully recovered with a long life ahead of her and will be able to see her daughter do all the things a mother should, yet this country had given up on her without doing anything.

On Friday Mum had spent most of the day on the phone going back and forth between the home, my Aunt and the doctor surgery. The district nurse had to be called out to check his catheter and found it was completely blocked in the tube in his stomach, so she had to remove that and flush it out (chcolate brown blood came flooding out). The home then tried to get hold of the doctor, he refused to speak to them. My Aunt tried calling and he refused to speak to her, so she called my Mum, who then called the surgery to find he wasn't there but 5 minutes after saying exactly what she thought he was calling her back from his mobile and sorting things out.

Later on that evening my Mum called me to say that the doctor had just phoned her to ask her permission to have Grandad admitted to hospital as he thought he might have a bacteria/parasite associated with too many antibiotics. Of course Mum said yes.

*Edited on 23/1/11

Yesterday we had a visit from Marion's Grandma and John. It wasn't a bad day in all. When they'd left I tried calling Mum to see whether she'd gone to see my Grandad and after chatting to the answerphone I called her on her mobile, she was in the car with my Aunt and had just left the hospital. Grandad had finally arrived at the hospital in the early hours of the morning (so why did it take an emergency patient 5 hours to get to hospital?) and was in a very serious condition. If this parasite spreads to the lungs or kidneys nothing can be done to cure it, it's fatal.

The 2 Sister's at the hospital that Mum and my Aunt saw were very helpful and knew that they were very angry and upset. Apparently when he was in hospital the other day, the hospital informed the GP about this parasite and asked him to make sure he prescribed the medication for the home to administer. He obviously ignored it.

Mum spoke to Grandad and he managed to say that his mouth was very dry. One Sister said she'd give him a little drop of water, but he's not actually allowed anything to eat or drink my mouth due to the severity of the illness and the fear it might choke him and he's being drip fed. He took a few sips of water and she asked what kind of things he liked to eat, so they told her and she said that they have the supplement meals there (like Complan) and did he like soup - oh yes he loves soup. So they're going to give him those to build his strength up, through the drip system for the time being.

He has also had a big disgusting kind of blood blistery scab on his ear for over a year now. The home have said there's nothing that can be done because it's a cancer of some sort and yet when Mum went in yesterday they had cleaned up his ear and you could hardly see it. The hospital are now so concerned about the level of care at the home that they have already reported them and their abilities as a care home.

I have said for a very long time that I didn't think they were doing their jobs properly. I've worked in a council run care home, it was cleaner, it didn't smell, the staff were approachable and it just was a nicer place to be. I don't see my Grandad very often because he's 100 miles away, but when I do go I can't wait to get back out because the smell just makes me heave. It doesn't look clean and I never sit down.

I hope that they learn from this, but the doctor and the home won't be getting away with it, they're not going to hear me complaining to them, I'm going straight to the General Medical Council and they had better reply, otherwise there will be hell to pay. I am so sick of incompetence.