I spend around 22 hours in Ward 109.
Waking up properly I see I have a drip and a morphine pump. My leg is bandaged from ankle to knee and hurts. Blood seeps onto my sheets. I am in the right hand corner of the ward beside the window. I don't recall the view. My observations are taken and everything is fine. Blood pressure a bit low but then it usually is.
At 5pm dinner is served. Its a bit early but at least its food. I manage to get a vegetarian lasagna which is surprisingly good but the portion is small. Food standards later drop dramatically. At visiting time my friend brings me in (illicitly I presume) a home made salad. I am very grateful.
A nurse arrives with the drug trolley around 6. There's a bit of a problem with my medication. Its been changed - but no one told me and now the nurse is unable to tell me why. I doze off. The room is far too hot but the woman on my left continually complains of the cold. I strip off the blanket and cover and still, its stifling.
Night time on the ward is indescribably awful. Two nurses for every twelve patients - split into three wards. It is impossible to sleep. My three fellow inmates are up and down to the commode all night. Buzzers ring for over ten minutes without being answered. The nurses just cant keep up. I hear a crash call for Ward 111. There are pounding feet. In my room one woman is snoring. Another talks quietly to herself - suggesting she needs to go to the toilet. I ring my buzzer a number of times for her. A nurse checks my morphine pump hourly. When I dare to use the pump, its high pitched beeping sound would wake the dead - except presumably even the dead cant sleep here anyway.
I listen to music. I drink my water. I use the commode - with assistance. I cant get out of bed myself because there are too many tubes. Eventually I sleep from around 5am for an hour On waking I ask when the tea will be coming round. The night nurse says it will be hours yet so she very kindly makes me a cup. I am shattered, sore and angry. Blood is taken from my right arm.
The night staff serve up breakfast. For some reason (costs?) it doesn't aspire to the Government guidelines on nutrition. No fruit, juice or yoghurt. Cereal, toast or bread and marmalade. I cant eat cereal with milk. I should have brought some juice with me but I didn't think it would be this bad. Why can St Johns provide a healthy tasty breakfast but the ERI cant? I accept some toast but turn down the tea and coffee.
I expect a paper trolley. But nothing comes. No chance to buy a paper, or some juice or fruit.
I wait for the ward round. I have to get out of here. I am tired and hungry and need a wash badly. My consultant turns up on his own well after the other doctors have left. I plead for discharge. Yes, I can go home. We discuss pain relief, physio and my dressings. He is helpful and kind - on his way to theatre with what appears to be his breakfast in his hand.
Around 11.30am the nurses finally get to our ward. They are surprised to hear of my discharge. I will have to wait until the afternoon before my paper work is complete and my drugs sorted. I don't mind. I just need the promise of an exit.
The staff nurse helps me into the shower and bags up my leg. I wash my hair and struggle into my clothes. The pain is intense and I have lost mobility in my knee. The bandages are cutting hard into my foot.
After lunch (tasteless) I see the physio, get some more stair practice and listen to an OT tell one of the ladies opposite that she will have to go into a home. Another physio turns up and teaches an elderly lady how to get in and out of the bed on her own. As soon as he leaves, she has forgotten and I have to talk her through it myself.
Discharge is a complicated business for the staff nurse. I require an appointment with the district nurse, a letter for my GP, a discussion with the junior doctor and coordination between ward and clinic physios.
I am out of the ward by 2pm, staggering down to the exit in pain, and in my own bed by 2.30 where I spend the next day and a half. I did not succumb to a hospital infection, and my operation, so far as I understand, was a success. I am grateful for both of those outcomes. But...
Its difficult to describe how awful my experience was in the ward. The medical care was excellent and the nurses did their best. But there simply weren't enough of them. Is it old fashioned to expect a decent wash after returning from theatre? Why is the food so poor that relatives are bringing in alternatives. I didn't mind helping the elderly patients in my room but I shouldn't have felt the need to do that when I was feeling so poorly myself. And how can we ensure that patients get enough sleep to help them recover?
And the biggest question of all - why can St Johns manage to get all of these things right, and the ERI (at least in my experience) cant. Perhaps I expect too much of the wards. Maybe my standards too high? I wonder now whether senior hospital managers are aware that this is the level of care provided and are satisfied that it is the best that they can do within a limited budget.
Or, perhaps they haven't experienced it and therefore cant or don't understand what it feels like as a patient. I don't know. Its a tough job being a hospital manager - lives are at stake. Mistakes are picked up by the media but the positive stories (by far and away the majority) never are. And in general, everyone involved is doing their best. But for the first time in my life I am contemplating going privately if I have to repeat this operation - not for the medical care, but just to get a decent night's sleep and a proper wash after a very hard and stressful day waiting for, and then having, an operation.
Waking up properly I see I have a drip and a morphine pump. My leg is bandaged from ankle to knee and hurts. Blood seeps onto my sheets. I am in the right hand corner of the ward beside the window. I don't recall the view. My observations are taken and everything is fine. Blood pressure a bit low but then it usually is.
At 5pm dinner is served. Its a bit early but at least its food. I manage to get a vegetarian lasagna which is surprisingly good but the portion is small. Food standards later drop dramatically. At visiting time my friend brings me in (illicitly I presume) a home made salad. I am very grateful.
A nurse arrives with the drug trolley around 6. There's a bit of a problem with my medication. Its been changed - but no one told me and now the nurse is unable to tell me why. I doze off. The room is far too hot but the woman on my left continually complains of the cold. I strip off the blanket and cover and still, its stifling.
Night time on the ward is indescribably awful. Two nurses for every twelve patients - split into three wards. It is impossible to sleep. My three fellow inmates are up and down to the commode all night. Buzzers ring for over ten minutes without being answered. The nurses just cant keep up. I hear a crash call for Ward 111. There are pounding feet. In my room one woman is snoring. Another talks quietly to herself - suggesting she needs to go to the toilet. I ring my buzzer a number of times for her. A nurse checks my morphine pump hourly. When I dare to use the pump, its high pitched beeping sound would wake the dead - except presumably even the dead cant sleep here anyway.
I listen to music. I drink my water. I use the commode - with assistance. I cant get out of bed myself because there are too many tubes. Eventually I sleep from around 5am for an hour On waking I ask when the tea will be coming round. The night nurse says it will be hours yet so she very kindly makes me a cup. I am shattered, sore and angry. Blood is taken from my right arm.
The night staff serve up breakfast. For some reason (costs?) it doesn't aspire to the Government guidelines on nutrition. No fruit, juice or yoghurt. Cereal, toast or bread and marmalade. I cant eat cereal with milk. I should have brought some juice with me but I didn't think it would be this bad. Why can St Johns provide a healthy tasty breakfast but the ERI cant? I accept some toast but turn down the tea and coffee.
I expect a paper trolley. But nothing comes. No chance to buy a paper, or some juice or fruit.
I wait for the ward round. I have to get out of here. I am tired and hungry and need a wash badly. My consultant turns up on his own well after the other doctors have left. I plead for discharge. Yes, I can go home. We discuss pain relief, physio and my dressings. He is helpful and kind - on his way to theatre with what appears to be his breakfast in his hand.
Around 11.30am the nurses finally get to our ward. They are surprised to hear of my discharge. I will have to wait until the afternoon before my paper work is complete and my drugs sorted. I don't mind. I just need the promise of an exit.
The staff nurse helps me into the shower and bags up my leg. I wash my hair and struggle into my clothes. The pain is intense and I have lost mobility in my knee. The bandages are cutting hard into my foot.
After lunch (tasteless) I see the physio, get some more stair practice and listen to an OT tell one of the ladies opposite that she will have to go into a home. Another physio turns up and teaches an elderly lady how to get in and out of the bed on her own. As soon as he leaves, she has forgotten and I have to talk her through it myself.
Discharge is a complicated business for the staff nurse. I require an appointment with the district nurse, a letter for my GP, a discussion with the junior doctor and coordination between ward and clinic physios.
I am out of the ward by 2pm, staggering down to the exit in pain, and in my own bed by 2.30 where I spend the next day and a half. I did not succumb to a hospital infection, and my operation, so far as I understand, was a success. I am grateful for both of those outcomes. But...
Its difficult to describe how awful my experience was in the ward. The medical care was excellent and the nurses did their best. But there simply weren't enough of them. Is it old fashioned to expect a decent wash after returning from theatre? Why is the food so poor that relatives are bringing in alternatives. I didn't mind helping the elderly patients in my room but I shouldn't have felt the need to do that when I was feeling so poorly myself. And how can we ensure that patients get enough sleep to help them recover?
And the biggest question of all - why can St Johns manage to get all of these things right, and the ERI (at least in my experience) cant. Perhaps I expect too much of the wards. Maybe my standards too high? I wonder now whether senior hospital managers are aware that this is the level of care provided and are satisfied that it is the best that they can do within a limited budget.
Or, perhaps they haven't experienced it and therefore cant or don't understand what it feels like as a patient. I don't know. Its a tough job being a hospital manager - lives are at stake. Mistakes are picked up by the media but the positive stories (by far and away the majority) never are. And in general, everyone involved is doing their best. But for the first time in my life I am contemplating going privately if I have to repeat this operation - not for the medical care, but just to get a decent night's sleep and a proper wash after a very hard and stressful day waiting for, and then having, an operation.
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