SKI-er or Sk-ater. We know how to enjoy ourselves

Savvy_Sue

Francophile wrote: »

Let us know the title etc when it's published.

And when it will be serialised on Radio 4. It sounds like ideal material! Those books are often added to my birthday / Christmas list because I miss a few episodes and need to catch up!

Errata

margaretclare wrote: »

I have read in various places, complaints by older people about ageist discrimination in health care. We have found no such thing in recent weeks/months. The cost of treating DH, keeping him alive in Critical Care when he could so easily have died, then giving him the option of what to do about his knee, and the treatment with a very expensive antibiotic - teicoplanin - which has been going on since mid-November. It could have been said 'what's the point of doing all this for a man of 74, why go to such lengths to give him back maximum quality of life?' But that has never happened. so, no age discrimination that we could see. OTOH it is still the case that you need to be aware of what's going on and to be able to argue and complain, if necessary, and obviously not everyone has the ability or the inclination to do that.

Geriatricians have a very different view to yours - see here for their experience of institutionalised ageism in healthcare http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jan/26/nhs-ageism-geriatricians

seven-day-weekend

I have a friend who is a geriatrician, I will ask him what he thinks.

All I can say is that when my m-i-l became immobile through a stroke (she died six months later), no-one would feed her if we were not there to do so, she would have starved to death. On several occasions she had her food just placed at the bottom of the bed and then taken away uneaten. She was unable to feed herself.

We know this because we arrived on one occasion to see the food on her bed table, everybody else was eating and we watched to see if she would be fed and her food was just taken away again; several of the more able patients told us it had happened on several occasions.

I think it may be OK as Margaret says if you have someone to fight your corner or can do so yourself, but many elderly people are not in this position.

Errata

The lack of help with eating is slowly being improved in some hospitals with the use of a different coloured tray for those who need help to signal help is needed. It's been a long time coming - like 7DW I know of someone this happened to .........in the 1980's !
Personally I'm sick to death of medics/nurses/healthcare staff identifying ageism in healthcare but consistently failing to come up with a solution.

seven-day-weekend

[quote=Errata;18138739]The lack of help with eating is slowly being improved in some hospitals with the use of a different coloured tray for those who need help to signal help is needed. It's been a long time coming - like 7DW I know of someone this happened to .........in the 1980's !
Personally I'm sick to death of medics/nurses/healthcare staff identifying ageism in healthcare but consistently failing to come up with a solution.[/quote]

Well it is good that the problem is being addressed in some small way...

...but shouldn't Health Professionals KNOW that someone immobilised from a stroke would not be able to feed themselves? Why do they need telling?

donny-gal

We had the same experience as you 7DW 6 years ago with my Mum, luckily I was in a position at work where they let me to the morning visiiting and I just stayed on, no one every queried it, my brother and Dad did the tea time shift. There was a woman next door who had to be fed, and one day there were about 3 nurses and they had realised it they tormented her she would swear at them, and though though this hilarous, how I kept my mouth shut I do not know to this day, but probably the fear of what treatment my Mum would get when I was not there. This was a medical ward, not a specialised stroke ward, which was good when she was there, but this was bad they would take her out of bed and sit her in the chair without her dressing gown on in November a the side of a single glazed window, we had to have a confrontation with the consultant to get a CAT scan to see if she had had a stroke or not, the physio was asking for one was she knew she had (as did we) but he was adamant she had not, because a 84 year old woman said, well, my knee does give way sometimes, that did not explain the drooped mouth or the lack of movement in the arm too:mad: , they didn't . Eventually, with our persuasion she was transferred to a specialised stroke unit away from the medical hospital, they were fantastic, when she arrived from the medical hospital, they found her dehydrated and eventally found a broken hip!

If they have something to treat - then they are fine, but TLC and handling a patient like my father with dementia, they have no idea. He fell and broke his hip, as he was fit in body, they replaced it, which he has never used as he could not handle any physio, and is not totally bed ridden, but at least pain free, but he came out with a bed sore.

Sorry for the rant!
DG

Errata

Why do they need telling?

Search me. Especially as many nurses now have a degree in nursing ! Wouldn't it be wondeful if there was a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Oldies.

margaretclare

I do not doubt that these instances are true and that they exist - I have not said they don't. Neither of us has so far required the attentions of a geriatrician!! What I wrote was about our recent experiences. I am not saying everything was rosy. We have particular praise for: the paramedics, the ambulance and transport crews, the surgical teams, Critical Care, and the District Nursing Service. I won't say that all was perfect on the orthopaedic ward - it was patchy, in other words it depended on who was on duty, some were far better than others.

There is a specialist stroke unit at our local hospital and it is next door to the geriatric wards, http://www.southend.nhs.uk/Hospital+Services/Medical+Services/Acute+Stroke+Unit/

seven-day-weekend

Anyway, despite relating various tales of woe, I'm really glad Margaret that everything is going well for you and your husband.

margaretclare

Errata wrote: »

Search me. Especially as many nurses now have a degree in nursing ! Wouldn't it be wondeful if there was a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Oldies.

One of the District Nurses who comes to do DH's IV antibiotic is not at all pleased about the treatment her mother has recently received in our local hospital. Same kinds of thing that others have reported, following a broken hip which was pinned and then the pins broke - I think that's what happened - and her mother was in extreme pain before an X-ray could be read correctly, having been looked at by 3 or 4 different people!

Now DH has learned by watching the DNs do the correct way to do a sterile dressing and to inject into the Hickman line (it goes through his chest wall and into a vein very close to his heart!) he will be watching like a hawk once he goes into hospital. Anyone who does not handle it after hand-washing and with sterile gloves will be told to go away and do it properly. He says 'Having recovered from an infection which nearly killed me I do not intend to risk another one acquired in hospital - perish the thought!!'