Why do some partners stay all day?

I agree. The patient should be centred and the purpose for them being in hospital should be centred. It's not so they can listen to visitors phone calls. Everyone on a hospital ward should be on their absolute best behaviour but bearing in mind the vulnerability of patients, that goes for visitors doubly so. It's just basic decency to take your phone calls outside and use the public facilities, not the ward ones. You shouldn't be imposing on anyone and should be doing everything in your power to be unobtrusive.

Ok, it's super super hard for men to mindful. Message received.

If it's so hard they shouldn't be on the wards and that's that.

Years ago a hospital near us brought in open- ended visiting, so some visitors were there all day. It wasn't long before both staff and - crucially - patients were begging to go back to the traditional one hour in the afternoon & one hour in the evening. When you're ill, in pain etc, the last thing you want is people visiting - you want to be left alone.

I agree.

@C8H10N4O2try fighting that with the NHs 🤣

Its entirely reasonable to complain that a women’s ward allows unchecked and unsupervised men unlimited access.

If the hospital cannot provide care then it should be calling that out and telling patients to fund it as an extra rather than using random people as free HCAs. Its simply wrong that unqualified and unchecked people are being used as HCAs simply to maintain the pretence that NHS care is “free”.

for support, for advocacy, for safety, for company. many reasons

Lots of people have bad experiences or poor care in hospitals and want support or to feel they have a another of eyes to corroborate what is happening.

We have seen so many posts on here about peoples friends and families experiences when alone in hospital, or missed medication.
That young man recently with downs syndrome died of starvation on hospital as he was noted as nil by mouth for 9 days!

People need advocates, a lot of care is lacking or poor and without witness as patient you are often dismissed.

I have been with a patient who was accused of losing cancer medication when it never arrived, she was already deathly ill, confused and weak and being denied a second batch of meds. Turns out they never delivered it, how can a sick frail person be expected to argue back and forth with staff, for life saving medication.

I could go on and on, but visitors and people who care about you encourage recovery.

I would prefer visiting times, however I have a couple of friends whose husbands were in after falls.

Both had types of dementia

If my friends or their families hadn't been there, they wouldn't have been washed or changed or eaten or moved when they were able to be up

It's an utter disgrace

Agree with this 👆

I didn't know this was a thing. My local hospital has visiting times and they stick to them. You wouldn't be allowed visitors hanging around all day.

The other patient may have been more physically able than you but perhaps needs more emotional/mental support or advocacy. They may have nurodivergence. I agree it’s embarrassing though.

I stayed with my late husband when he went in for day surgery. Even though it was only day surgery, he was dying for other reasons.

Apart from special needs,poor mental health and the very frail I really don’t think it’s necessary for adults to have a visitor for hours on end !
It’s tiring for all concerned and lack of privacy for other patients.

I cannot see how he was being disrespectful?

For visiting hours to work, you need competent and capable care. The partner there would probably help someone to the toilet if they needed it. You were offered a choice but chose not to use it. You really can’t complain about what is allowed. They are allowed to be there, so I guess not much you can do

Honestly I very much doubt he was listening to the nurses conversation with another patient.

Totally agree.
My husband is due major surgery- he has anxiety - never had surgery before either.
I will be there as long as I can unless I'm evicted- its what he needs- frankly other patients are not my concern

I think there should be more restrictions and rules. When my mother was in hospital for a week, the woman in the next bed had her daughter with her all day, every day, and she talked loudly almost all the time, making it impossible for my mother to sleep. She needed to rest! If people want to sit quietly with someone then that’s fine, but they should be doing their utmost not to disturb others. Phone calls should also be limited, they are disruptive wherever you are. And big family visits should be prevented, as well, they’re obviously going to disturb everyone around them! Yes, different patients have different needs, and if someone needs someone with them 24/7 for a good reason then that should be accommodated, but it should be done with maximum consideration of others. Hospital wards aren’t social spaces, they’re for caring for the sick, who should always come first.

But women must be able to have the single sex provision the NHS is supposed to provide.

Most of the assaults on women are not committed by staff but by other men on women’s wards (or the supposedly non existent “mixed” wards). Some of the most egregious cases have involved the hospital lying and saying there were no men on the ward resulting in women being disbelieved. None of the visitors or patients are subject to any form of background checks before being given free access to these intimate spaces with women in a vulnerable state. Maternity wards in particular should be controlling access.

I’d much rather the NHS was honest and said “fund your own personal care” and we all took out insurance for that purpose with the state funding for insurance below certain incomes. They can use that fee to fund properly checked and supervised HCAs and decent food. This happens in more than one of the countries described by the Nuffield foundation as having an NHS style model.

I agree, when I had DD on a transitional unit one of the dad’s wouldn’t leave, he was loud on his phone all day. At one point a midwife said ‘you need to leave now as we have women in their pyjamas’.

Presumably given the close quarters of the ward it's not unlikely that he heard the suggestion of a commode and could have offered to step out. It's not hard to be mindful of the people around you when you're in their space.

They have visiting times in the hospital I work at.

I'm really surprised to see so little empathy on this thread from some people, I don't think it requires a giant leap of imagination to understand why visitors might need to stay all day, especially on an orthopedic ward where people likely have difficulty moving.

OP if you had a visitor they could have asked the man to step outside or helped you to the loo

Don't blame patients, blame the ridiculous ward system that still exists in this country, in other countries you have at most 2 beds in a room

In this case. Was the visitor meant to telepathically know that the op wanted the toilet?

And you’d be told that he isn’t if the ward allows visitors all day. If you repeatedly asked and made a nuisance of yourself, you would be more likely to be asked to leave.