Disgusting hospital

I was in an NHS hospital for 4 nights just over a month ago, admitted as an emergency. Couldn't fault it.
DH was in a different NHS hospital for 8 weeks in March/April this year. Again, couldn't fault it.

Recent trip to a and e and they were really stretched but staff were amazing. Nhs were so stretched people had been waiting for 15hrs and it was a 24hr wait for a bed. It's blindingly obvious it's been cut to the bone and was horrifically short on staff and facilities. But there were no staff hanging about chatting or being lazy they were literally running around. Private hospital experience has been arrogant surgeons with a lot of contempt. I think despite the wait NHS is impressive.

I have dual citizenship and know what it's like to try and get healthcare in the US. If the NHS disappears, God help everyone. We need to return the money that the Tories have taken out of the NHS.

Why does discussion always descend into nonsense comparisons with the US?

Nobody would implement their model of healthcare because it has terrible outcomes (like ours) and is very expensive (like ours, but worse).

There are plenty of models of healthcare that actually work, in numerous other European countries plus Australia etc. Models which cost a very similar amount to ours but result in decent, competent care in clean hospitals with patients seen in a timely fashion and treated in dignity and staying in private rooms with edible food and have far, far superior health outcomes to the NHS.

Not the government. Voters. The Tories are what they are. Everyone knew what they'd do to the NHS. Those who didn't got to see it in action and then vote for the same again and again.

Honestly, your comments are making me despair. I hope you're one of those people who can't stop being defensive and that you don't actually believe what you're saying.

A stopped clock is right twice a day. In the same way, there probably are wards that function despite the funding cuts and workload. Who knows why. Maybe the ward your husband was in that functioned well did not require highly trained staff and could be staffed by random agency workers. Maybe there was a powerful boss in charge who could get hold of more resources than some bosses can access. Maybe it just happened that there weren't many people with your husband's condition at that time in that ward.

I have been on a waiting list for an ovary removal for nearly three years. At my local hospital, it has been normal for people to be seen in corridors and in the entrance hall for years now. It took an ambulance over nine hours to reach my colleague's elderly mother a couple of weeks ago when she had what turned out to be a heart attack. Your husband was lucky.

Indeed.

They stood around chatting and laughing while my baby daughter's oxygen alarm went off repeatedly and she was struggling to breathe, after she was brought in by ambulance, despite my continual pleas for help. She almost died. When later I complained about it they claimed to have been "busy with emergencies". This was an emergency. And they weren't, they were laughing about nights out and dating and holidays, I heard some of the conversation when I approached the gaggle of them at the nurses desk in distress repeatedly, asking for help.

Eventually we were put in a room and again left for hours on end with no help or information once my daughter was stabilised. As a breastfeeding mother I was not even given a glass if water in the 24 hours we were in hospital and I was too terrified to leave my daughter alone to go to try to find one. I rang the buzzer several times but nobody came.

Yes, ok. I'll blame the appalling treatment my late husband got on one ward, but curiously not the next, who were wonderful, on the government..🙄

This is the sort of thing I mean, and it was this sort of thing that has made me complain about my late DHs treatment.

The ward had plenty of staff, kindness costs nothing, and there are no excuses.

Sorry for your loss - my DD had a late (24 week), miscarriage 21 years ago, but, on that occasion, and in those times, the staff were lovely.💐

Then you have no excuse at all for not understanding why things are so bad in the NHS.

I had a horrific experience in the Luton and Dunstable hospital 3 years ago.

Nurse walked into the room 'Argh! What is that awful smell!'

Her colleague... might be the dead (she giggled and whispered, assuming I couldn't hear).

The other nurse whispered to her 'oh, didn't they tell her they start to smell after a few days?'

They were talking about my little girl. I had a late miscarriage at 18 weeks and she was in a cold cot beside me but in my arms at the time. It was day 2 and I was previously told I could spend as much time as needed.

She didn't smell. Neither did I

The trauma from that has haunted me.

Yes, I know. My son and family live in America, and I understand their system. I wouldn't want it as a norm over here, but, at the moment, it's increasingly hopeless to try and get consistent care with the NHS.

And, that is what is alarming people.

Ok then. I'm a Boomer. I have always voted Labour. Always, since I was old enough to vote at the beginning of the 70s.

Who should I vote for?

An incredibly naive comment and one that demonstrates the danger we're in, because many people think like you do.

I have dual citizenship and know what it's like to try and get healthcare in the US. If the NHS disappears, God help everyone. We need to return the money that the Tories have taken out of the NHS.

I have had the experience of having "good" health insurance in the US but having such high copays that healthcare was still inaccessible. And of having to argue with insurance companies while ill. And of seeing people die or spend years in pain and poverty (unable to work) because of being unable to access care.

It is frightening that so many here are turning to private care.

A young mum of two toddlers recently died in hospital due to severe migraines that they weren't taking seriously. There's a huge legal case being launched.

I don't feel emotionally able to go into detail but my sister in law lost her life as a direct result of NHS negligence in ICU.

Something needs to be done and now!

The “me too” moment is coming for healthcare, I can feel it.

I've already tried to explain the concept of overwhelmed staff who don't have enough time even to provide basic care, let alone engage in social niceties. I have explained that when a job is poorly paid and overwhelming, staff leave and kids who would make kind and competent professionals choose alternative career paths.

I don't believe you don't get it. You'll be pretending not to get it because the easy option is to blame the victims of your voting decisions. Voters chose this and actually, it's the very groups that most likely voted for it that are suffering the worst consequences of their decisions.

That is the problem. I'm happy to pay for cover for some private health care, but pre existing conditions just aren't covered.

Unless you can pay it all outright, you are left at the mercy of our now crappy NHS.

Well no, because it excludes existing health issues!

You may have worked in child protection and I respect anyone who does that kind of work. But it is simply not at the same level as what nurses and doctors have to deal with, where every decision and every hour of every day brings situations that might severely injure or kill people.

Christ I hope the nurses in our local hospital don’t have that level of responsibility, actual life or death.

Everyone would die.

They seemed to struggle to break free of the juicy gossip at the nurses station. And, given the sneering and contempt they displayed towards patients, I doubt they could give a fuck.

Those sorts of people could be paid very well and would still swan around, avoiding as much work as possible and acting like they were doing the patients a favour rather than their paid job.

Thankfully I haven't been admitted to hospital in many years but I have had two visits to A&E this year and I can honestly say I was very impressed on both occasions. I was dealt with promptly, treated with care and kindness by all the staff. I appreciate that this is far from the norm and that I was very fortunate. Obviously being on a ward might be a whole different ball game, even at the same hospital.

Unfortunately private healthcare is not reliable for emergencies / serious illness.

There are serious problems in the NHS, and the experience you have had is clearly terrible, but there are also very serious problems in the private sector. I would never want to be seriously unwell on a private ward. They do not have the experience in recognising and managing serious illness. When they do recognise serious problems the patient is likely to be transferred to a NHS hospital that can manage them.

Private healthcare has the major benefit of speeding up time to be seen or have investigations as an outpatient. That's it really. The UK is not set up for inpatient private healthcare. I would choose safety over service and a nice menu every time.

How much money does it take to be kind? What would the budget need to be?

The "all angels are nurses" thing has always been over-egged. Many aren't.

But, I think we were all conditioned to applaud and congratulate them through Covid, and much (but not all) was deserved. Many staff never went near a Covid ward.

Yet, we are all expected to excuse anything that goes on.

Shop workers were constantly exposed to the virus, without the protection....but I still expect Tesco etc to provide a decent service.😗

It's so frustrating to read comments like yours. I see them at various newspapers too. Voters simply will not take responsibility for a completely preventable situation that they chose. This is austerity.

It is not possible to squeeze blood out of a stone. Likewise, it is not possible to squeeze endless work out of staff who don't have enough hours in the day to do what they need to. Staff end up leaving and kids who would make caring, excellent staff members won't go near NHS jobs.

You may have worked in child protection and I respect anyone who does that kind of work. But it is simply not at the same level as what nurses and doctors have to deal with, where every decision and every hour of every day brings situations that might severely injure or kill people.

Holistic patient centred care innit? 🤷🏻‍♀️😁👍🏻

ive never wheeled anyone out for a fag or a vape. I have seen someone’s mum manhandle her adult dd who couldn’t walk /still under a spinal into a wheelchair for a cigarette 40 mins post elective section though!

I understand, fully, that there is a problem with how money is spent. The NHS is an inefficient monolith and has been for years.

I understand that good nurses, (and there are many) feel demoralised by the system - and I would imagine they are tired of having to prop up lazy/uncaring/inefficient staff.

But, kindness and consideration, even verbal, costs little. Leaving people screaming in pain, neglected, and doing nothing, will never be a good look for any hospital.

Hospitals should never be a place where people fear to go, and are panic stricken in case they haven't got relatives to fight their corner.🙁