In hospital, what ridiculous other patients have you encountered?

[Neverplayleapfrogwithaunicorn]

I’m currently on a Gynaecology ward.
There is a lady who was opppsite me.
In the last 10 hours she has made me so ragey!
She has been FaceTiming and video calling family all morning talking really fast (not sure what language) but really loud.

She then played the kind of music you would hear in a mosque really loud on YouTube even though she had headphones. This was while her beeper was going off on her IV the noise was like Chinese water torture.

When dinner came she photographed the whole lot of it. Taking about 20 photos with the camera noise switched on.

Then came visiting, 10 members of her really loud family arrived including 2 screaming toddlers. They say there for 2 hours. They were not her kids they appeared to be her sisters. But not once did they take them out.
They then cracked out 3 tubes of really stinky cheese and onion Pringles as a group. The crisps were all crushed into the floor and all over the bed.
They told her she could go home so the family took her...... thank bloody god for that!!

Have any of you come across other patients in hospital that make you feel the rage!?

Not really the kind of ridiculous thing you can feel annoyed about (I hope I'm not one of those people dragging their serious into a lighthearted thread now! ), as the person was clearly mentally unwell, but a weird and ridiculous experience for me:

On a psychiatric ward one of my fellow patients set her bed (and herself I think, I'm not 100% sure of that) on fire during the night. I was drugged with sedatives, and it was a very surreal experience. Lots of alarms, and lots of hospital staff who appeared as if by magic. Smoke and screaming. Everything under control by the staff and fire crew quickly, though, but being herded around while sedated and in your PJs, with all these people around you just taking it as a run of the mill thing.

Snorers are the worst, though.

In a+e and few Saturday nights ago due to my blood pressure being way out due to previous transient ischemic attack and meds causing me to keel over at work

It was so busy there were about 20-25 of us in beds in the corridors all rooms full drs trying their hardest runing around between patients to save a few seconds

Woman in front of me whos husband is sat in the small amount of corridor that's left starts accosting a Dr my wife in agony been here 3 hours no pain killers yadahyadah the woman's reading a magazine not made a peep the 30 min I was in the R A T room
Drugs are duly given 20 minutes later he's asking for water . . . For him
She's wisked to x ray or mri I forget which and comes back asleep not from anestetic though
Than 5 minutes later Dr comes she's constipated given 1 sachet of laxative to take then 1 for home and told to pick up a prescription the next morning
But no not good enough he wants the lot now can't possibly go out tomorrow for it

Maybe slightly off topic but I was in hospital once on a respiratory ward for 2 weeks.
The woman in the bed opposite was admitted on the same day as I was and we ended up chatting all the time.
I thought she must have been somewhat of a celebrity as she seemed to get special treatment, was allowed a visitor with her at all hours of the day and the nurses spent a lot of time talking to her. When the doctors came to talk to her they always wheeled her out into a private room etc.
Couldn't quite work it out until I heard nurses talking one day while she was showering and mentioned her full name.
Still thinking she was a celebrity I googled her and it turns out she was actually a prisoner and had murdered both of her children. The people with her at all hours of the day were prison guards in plain clothes.
I tried not to speak to her much after that.

Many years ago (a couple of decades!) my brother was on a children's ward. For a short but memorable period, the bed opposite was occupied by 'Rocky'. Rocky spent his time bouncing between his own bed and the (thankfully vacant) bed next door! Boing, boing, BOING CRASH, boing, boing... on and on and on.

According to his Mum (who obviously did nothing to curb her spirited angel), Rocky loved his Sunny D...

Ohdear the doctor used a sedative which is no big deal at all. Perhaps I should have added that because the dr came out from theatre because of the noise, he wasted time and my ds's sedative started to wear off. Consequently he felt much more pain than he needed to and came out very distressed. So I don't give a shit about anyone else's anxiety.
Ps dh had lost a cousin the previous year due to a bad reaction to a GA but managed not to get hysterical about his son's procedure.

Rocky sounds delightful!!

A woman in outpatients who asked when they were going to bring her her lunch. The staff explained that they don't actually provide lunch to people in outpatients. She was most put out.

A couple of years ago I had a MC and they wanted to keep me in till I had surgery cos of a haematoma. Being a sunday and lack of beds I was put in a gynae day bay which was empty except for one reprobate. It was Valentine's Day, I didn't get to have the yummy breakfast DH had made me cos my insides had started to fall out. 8 hours in hospital being prodded, poked and scanned I hadn't eaten anything and missed the food order as I hadn't been admitted. I was ravenous. Hangry. And emotional.

The hca comes round with what was left from tea. A shepherds pie, veg and gravy. Ooooo Yes please. Or a low fibre mushroom soup. She went to the reprobate first who took the shepherds pie 😡😡😡 then she didn't even friggen eat it and just pissed and moaned about it. I was raging. It was gone 8 o'clock so passed visiting so DH couldn't even bob back with something 😔. I've heard a grudge for that woman ever since! It's only been nearly 2.5 years

A woman next to me who used her call bell to inform the nurses that she'd slept.

A few years ago I was rushed into hospital with appendicitis on a Sunday evening. I was in absolute agony. The hospital were awesome and brilliant and had me admitted and taken up to a ward. Lots of IV antibiotics, morphine, etc. The lovely surgeon came round at 2am to explain that I was stable enough that he didn’t want to operate right now (!) but I had been put to the top of his list for 8am. All utterly amazing and the sort of thing that makes you worship the NHS.

Except that from the moment I hit the ward, the entire thing was accompanied by a running commentary from the next bed. Some bloody woman was in for her gallbladder and discussed my appendix, my treatment, my admission time, bitched about me going to the front of the queue, getting better drugs, etc. Firstly through the curtain to me and the consultant, then to every passing nurse, then on the phone to everyone she’d ever met. She made it sound like I was sat in a diamond encrusted nightie being fed caviar and champagne instead of an emergency life threatening admission. If I had been able to move, I’d have chinned her. Three days I had to listen to it.

Recent admission with dd on a 6 bed peads ward. One of the other mothers absolutely stank of BO. Luckily we were by the windows which I opened to air the room but every so often would catch a whiff, I can't even imagine how bad it would have been being in the beds next to her. Even the nurses acknowledged how bad it was and offered up air freshener! She had plenty of visitors and the ward had parent showers so no excuse really to not have someone bring you a change of clothes and take a shower.

Currently on a ward purely for 48hr observations following a bad AF attack. I feel fine and well enough to be at home but have to be here for a 48hr healthcare monitored ECG. Im irritable cause i feel well enough to be home... the girl in the bed to my left texting constantly..fine..only she has bloody touch tones turned on. Shes enough to cause a bloody rapid heart rate!

Not ridiculous but really sad. On
a ward of mums and babies, after having C section for baby number 2. The lady opposite me put her new born in a fancy dress that seemed too big for her and just seemed to be struggling. I asked if everything was okay. She said that they had taken away her other seven babies but she was hoping they'd let her keep this one. My heart went out to her and I tried to give her some practical advice but will never know what happened.

After having DS1 I was on a 6 bed ward, the woman beside me repeatedly complained loudly on her phone that DS1 had kept her awake the night before. When she hung up I rang my Mum and said loudly that the woman beside me thinks she has a fucking magic curtain that means I can't hear her slagging me off. Not another word was said.

After having DS2 one of the Dads kept stealing meals if you didn't get up and get your plate quick enough. It led to a tense showdown between the staff and the Dad and then all meals were delivered to us at our beds. Another Mum refused to feed or hold her baby, she spoke no English and her husband explained to staff that they were disappointed their son was born with a disability and it was better that she didn't bond with him. There were concerns over the size of the child's head and some of his limbs weren't formed properly, it makes me so sad to wonder what sort of life the baby had.

Oh and the night on a trolley in a corridor we were packed in, the guy ahead of me was tall so his feet stuck out, near the top of my head, and they stank. I was very unwell and the stench made it worse, I hated him.
Also waiting to be seen in triage there was a very abusive guy in a wheelchair, I presume mentally ill. He said (shouted) repeatedly, 'do you know what I'm going to do' and then followed it with something increasingly horrible e.g. ring the head of services and get you fired, fuck your daughter, etc etc, he also called one of the nurses a racial slur. Then he said again 'do you know what I'm going to do?' and another patient shouted 'play the banjo?' and everyone roared. He huffed off.

I've only had to stay in when having the DCs and been an outpatient, both of which were bad enough, but reading these and having aspergers with noise as one of my sensory issues fills me with horror! I honestly don't know how I'd cope.

I was on the postnatal ward following an ELCS for DS3 and the mum in the bed next to me did my head in.
Every time her baby so much as whimpered she changed his nappy and attempted to feed him all the while saying "good job good job, well done good job buddy!" repeatedly.

This not only ensured that she woke him up good and proper when perhaps he just needed a little shushing or whatever but also that when he actually woke for feeding that he would be screaming by the time the whole nappy changing rigmarole was finished.

This continued throughout the night and she didn't even attempt to lower her voice at all despite the rest of the ward trying to sleep. Of course they both woke DS3 up several times and it annoyed me so much that I got myself discharged 36 hours after my section at 10pm at night just to get away from it.

On a shared ward after giving birth. Woman in the bed next to me switched on her TV (at a fairly loud volume) the second she woke up and didn't turn it off until she went to sleep. This is despite having just given birth, having visitors, having a Newborn etc. If they hadn't moved her when they did I might have punched her.

Many years ago and in a different country, I was in an isolation ward being barrier nursed. The 4 iso rooms were around the nurses station. A woman was moved into a room and screamed, and screamed all day and night. I was sedated and gave no shits, but a woman in the third room was yelling at her "shut up, you stupid cow " etc. Then her family started banging on the door of the nurses station and complaining loudly. We then heard the nurse explain that the poor woman had gone too close to a kerosene heater and her nightdress had gone up, she had 75 % burns to her body, mainly 3rd degree and wasn't expected to last the night. The husband said "good, then we'll all have some peace"

Ex-HCP, so I’m trying to remember the bits I haven’t blocked out.

Bloke who though he had the right to stick his hand up our dresses. And complained when the ward sister rostered a male nurse for morning shifts and sorted out uniforms with trousers.

Bloke who we had to sort out who visited, his wife or fiancée. The thing was neither knew about the other…
That was fun!!

Patients family who was going to sue us because we dumped his magazine. Never mind that it was coved in blood and had got on the magazine when the Drs were trying to place a central line.

This is after we resus him 2. And did the same twice more.

The women who was fully able that want us to rub cream on her anus in case she got a sore. The first time she asked a student, who was very helpfully. Just as we started to wonder what: where the noise was coming from. And mistakenly assumed one of the male patients was watching porn. …

The one who offered me £20 for a blowjob. To be honest I was disappointed that he only thought I was only worth £20…

The patient who complained that he had to wait for a cup of tea.
We were in the middle of resus-ing a patient, he actually opened the patients curtains!!

That’s not including all the ones who claimed they paid my wages…and didn’t like been told I paid taxes too.

To end on a lighter note.
I once asked a patient to out of bed.
Both she & her husband started giggling and I suddenly remembered she had an below knee amputation.

Patient was waiting for a transfer to a specialty unit ( this is relevant ).
About 2days later we got word there was a bed.
I go to tell her, her husband was with her.
So I say they’ve got a bed but it is still possible that it could be filled overnight.
She says oh I’ll cross my fingers

And I reply and all your toes ( I can only think I blocked the previous event)

She couldn’t stop laughing, her husband nearly wet himself. And every time I saw him afterwards he giggled.

Becca That's horrific! He clearly knew what he was doing, the bastard. The consultant sounds like a twat too, how dare they say such a thing to you? I don't suppose you can put people in solitary confinement on a psychiatric ward, although that's where he should be, so he can't hurt anyone else.

Yes he knew, no one rationally could think otherwise. The defence was he couldn't control himself around women. Yet I was there for two weeks on a ward with fourteen other women and him - he never treated any of them the same.

However, I was the only one there with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and was treated badly due to that in front of other patients which I think is why he targetted me.

I was locked in my room for my safety, whereas his went unhindered.

The ward has a zero tolerance policy to violence. However, I and my advocate were told that didn't apply in the case of 'ill' patients.