panicking again

EdInvestor

soolin wrote: »

One last thing that I thought was dreadfully sad, I was sitting chatting to dad last week when he suddenly looked straight at me and asked 'are you my mum'. I told him I was not and he was so sad as he said he had been told to wait by her and she had never come back for him and he missed her. His mother burnt to death in front of him when he was 4 years old and he did not speak for two years after it happened.

What a horrific story.But how heart-warming that when he looks at you, he is reminded of his darling mother, lost in such terrifying circumstances.

It just shows how the quality of your care for him is getting through to him, despite the damage to his mind caused by the disease.

It's a tremendous vote of confidence that what you are doing for him is absolutely worthwhile - and very deeply appreciated, albeit expressed in this rather strange way.

chesky369

Maybe as a patient one has to 'turn it on its head' and talk to the nursing staff as though they were the servants. Maybe that's the only way you get any respect - a class thing. Not so good but something to remember and try out next time.

chesky369

well that leaves an awful lot of us without the benefit of being one of the profession - my family were also all 'in service' so I too have never thought of treating people in this way but next time around I think I might just give it a go - that of course is if I'm feeling well enough to carry it off.

EdInvestor

Some medical personnel have a kind of authoritarian arrogance about them which is very irritating. IIRC this used to be mainly found with top consultants, who acted and were treated as God. But it seems now to have filtered down the ranks somewhat.It can lead to staff treating patients like commodities. One sees it at the doctor's surgery as well.

One suspects that the less a patient knows about medicine and the details of his or her illness, the more likely s/he will attract this kind of attitude.Whereas someone who is well informed and can hold a discussion about treatment with a nurse of doctor might stand a better chance of being treated properly.

So is it more a question of knowledge (and confidence) than class, perhaps?

Sloughflint it does occur to me that there's a job to be done in the case of the frail older generation for independent (voluntary?) concerned people to stand as a representative/ helper for elderly patients without family when in hospital, so that such people can have help in engaging the system and dealing with problems.

Of course hospital staff might not welcome the presence of such interfering busybodies, but they might be exactly what's needed to deal with the both the arrogance problem and the filth problem, which would appear to be linked.

EdInvestor

sloughflint wrote: »

Maybe it's not a British thing to interfere but I saw how the faces would light up when I entered the room and knowing that many of these patients as a result of their age were likely to be in hospital for quite a time, I felt it my duty to engage with/entertain them all and if anything was not satisfactory, demand resolution just like I would with my own loved one.

Good for you.:T

If every visitor did this, it would not only make the patients' days go by a bit quicker but also keep these 'professionals' on their toes a bit more.

Hopefully it would.

I was also always so very touched by the camaraderie between the elderly frail patients on a ward. They would try to look out for one another.

That's very encouraging also.

Errata

It would appear that our hospitals are staffed by nurses who are fiends from hell and doctors who view those they are treating as commodities to be processed. Can this be true? Are the observations recently made by a Tory Lord that nurses are gossiping sex mad drunkards a correct view?

If the above is the case, what should society do to bring about change?

monkeyspanner

Errata wrote: »

If the above is the case, what should society do to bring about change?

Having seen the state of the NHS and although in principle I would disapprove I believe the only solution now is to give the power back to the consumer. We have seen the massive increase in NHS funding in recent years has not produced the desired improvements.

The NHS should be privatised and the funding given directly to the patient to spend at a hospital of their choice. The downside will be that the Government will not provide sufficient funds to pay for the necessary treatments provided in first class well run facilities.

I am now going to find my hardhat and take cover.

EdInvestor

monkeyspanner wrote: »

Having seen the state of the NHS and although in principle I would disapprove I believe the only solution now is to give the power back to the consumer.

I agree much more consumer involvement is needed, but question whether the fiscal weapon is the way to do this.Paying for healthcare tends to make the whole thing even more commercially focussed, as anyone in the Third World can testify.

Free at the point of use is a benefit "to die for" in the literal sense.Billions of people elswhere who have been runied by the cost of family illness would be astonished at the idea that anyone would want to give it up.Anyone from the pre NHS generation no doubt would agree.

chesky369

The NHS is truly one of the things this country should be most proud of. It's certainly a fact that it's now going through hard times but to privatise it would be a step on the road to removing free care at the point of need. Instead of giving it to the patients, there should be far more involvement in management by doctors and nurses, who have been alienated over the years by the introduction of administrators who have no interest in patients or illness.

soolin

I do believe in the NHS and whilst I prefer not to declare what i do for a living I am involved at a Government level with some aspects of it. I am not however a clinician.

However, I think that over the years the real aim of the NHS has been eroded by intereference with league tables, targets on things that the users don't want targets for, private service interference..the list is endless. So whilst there are some truly wonderful people working within it who still treat nursing or any other work as a calling there are others who have now been so completely disillusioned that they are merely biding their time until they can leave.

When I was younger nurses were almost mystical people that we all aspired to be.They ran their wards how they wanted them run for the benefit of patients.now more often than not they are overworked, working in conditions where they can't do what they see as best for the patient and bound by all sorts of very difficult rules designed to be politically correct but perhaps not actually workable in practice. No wonder they are disillusioned.

I have been ill and have spent time totally dependent in hospital, and have seen both examples of truly heroic nurses, and those that can barely be bothered to put down their newspaper and help a patient with a bed pan.

It is the system that needs to change, nursing needs to be returned to a profession that is seen as something to be proud of.