Woman evicted from NHS hospital ward after being stuck for 18 months

[SerendipityJane]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c897ew0ekp4o

Clearly this wasn’t about funding or a disconnect between NHS and SS. It is about a woman with a very serious mental illness who was unwilling to accept the placement she was offered. A placement that was the only one of over 100 others that agreed that they could meet her complex needs. I can imagine that this placement will also break down sooner or later, she could need hospital treatment and end up in exactly the same situation. Its a very sad situation.

If the way this lady was treated was anything like my mother, the pressure she would have been under on a day to day basis must have been appalling. I had to lodge an official complaint about the way my mother was treated as it just scared an old and confused woman. She didn't understand what was going on but people came to her bedside and told her to phone me to come and get her. then when they were stopped saying that it turned to if she wasn't out in 24 hours then she'd be taken home and dumped on to my 86 year old father who could only just manage himself.

if my folks didn't have me to advocate them god alone knows what would have happened. I got her out in just over 24 hours but only because we had money and spent nearly all the 24 hours on the phone making arrangements.

just such an awful time and my dad is frightened about getting ill himself now. i can understand why.

I know a guy who was in hospital for 7 months, albeit a community hospital rather than acute. He was an older guy who had a broken arm which did take a while to heal but clearly he didn't need to be in hospital all that time. He was classed as non-weight bearing so couldn't manage the stairs to go home and there wasn't space for a bed downstairs. I think there was some convoluted process of trying to get him a stairlift but that wasn't agreed because it was a temporary injury. Then the family decided he couldn't come home because the relative he lived with had serious mental health issues and wouldn't cope with having him there anymore. So then it was left to the next of kin to find a suitable care home. Next of kin was an 18 year old granddaughter who didn't have the first clue about finding a care home. The guy was pretty much independent on the ward, just couldn't do the stairs.

It was unbelievably ridiculous but they had recently stopped funding the non-weight bearing beds in care homes scheme and therefore people just had to stay in hospital if they couldn't walk non-weight bearing. Obviously at great cost.

18 months for someone with obviously much more complex needs than this guy doesn't surprise me.

This reply made me smile so much, thank you. I did go off on a bit of a rant but it’s as if sometimes because our illness has ugly symptoms (I have been a bad liar in my life, manipulative, and had periods where I lost touch with reality entirely due to stress and was close to hospitalisation) people don’t like it. Seems sometimes like ‘breaking the mental health stigma’ for a lot of people just covers depression and anxiety and the illnesses that are easier to understand. While it is so shit that there is a bed unable to be used in a hospital, it’s not the woman’s fault! She’s very poorly and vulnerable and the lack of provision for keeping her safe is entirely the system’s doing. It’s utterly appalling.

My friend who works on an inpatient ward sees it get worse and worse, no aftercare after hospitalization and just left to fend for themselves. All good the NHS promoting seeking help and talking to someone but doesn’t quite have the same impact when you get thrown on a waiting list for eternity (or in my case, EMDR therapy funding running out and leaving me in the midst of reliving the traumatic experiences we were trying to get rid of in the sessions 🥲).

Life is so much better these days, and I hope you are doing well too. X

This is awful to hear. Is it death through suicide usually or js the care not enough to keep the person healthy and ultimately alive. Either is heartbreaking, services have been cut in a disgusting way.

This woman was offered a package that must’ve cost 100 K a year and refused it.
something is clearly gone badly wrong with the system

Ive worked in nursing homes and you occasionally get people, under 65yrs old, who get evicted from numerous care facilities and get passed around the system.
I've met plenty of frail elderly who would much prefer to be back in their own homes but require 24hr care so they remain in care homes. I've also met younger people in care homes who still have capacity but have antisocial personality issues yet if they are threatening,aggressive, inconvenient enough the state will find them their own accommodation with 24hr care.
It's a bit unfair.

The mum doesn’t sound the full ticket so I doubt she’d have the capacity to care for someone with complex needs.

.zz.z.

Side track, I know, but if elderly people who need care/are a danger to themselves and want to stay in their own home, even refusing care, why can't they? They know they could easily die, they should be able to make their own choices. A friend of mine had a dad in a care home on liquid food, he hated it and wanted real food but was a choking risk. He knew he was a choking risk but wanted real food anyway but wasn't allowed.

Don't vote Tory, folks. This is what they gave us.

This. She wasn't 'stuck' she was refusing discharge.
Seems yet another self important, self centered 'me, me,me' person.
'How dare anyone else think that they matter, I'm the only person that matters, my wants, my needs are paramount'.
The pathologicalisation of selfishness is ridiculous.

Hospitals should not be held to ransom by difficult patients like this refusing to move. The decision is a medical decision. It's a terrible situation. There should be an institution where she was moved to until, or if, they could find a suitable placement.
I totally disagree with a PP who said people like her should be supported to live in their own homes with full-time carers. Why should the welfare state provide her with a home and 24 hour carers? She requires a bed in a place that is multi-bedded where fewer carers are needed than two full-time per person . If it is a large institution with wards that's fine - she was happy in hospital so would be happy there. I think what she wants is irrelevant.
I have no sympathy for these continual demands by people who contribute nothing to our system and take extortionate amounts from it while their families take no responsibility. The system needs to swing back to common sense decisions.
My 93 year old aunt is currently in an acute bed on a ward full of elderly people . In her bay- of 6 very elderly women all of whom have physical and cognitive frailties to some degree- 3 have adult children demanding places in care homes and sheltered accommodation for them because they 'can't look after her' (for whatever reason). The other 3 live in care facilities of one kind or another (including my aunt).
In the rest of the ward there is a man about 70 ish who must be 30 st plus who sits in a chair, room door open, legs apart wearing boxer shorts and eating his way through a table piled with crisps and chocolate brought in by his son- who told a Dr yesterday in the corridor his father takes cannabis and viagra daily 'for his porn habit' and he 'wants him moved into sheltered accommodation where there's someone to keep an eye on him all the time.'
There are very elderly people lying looking like corpses in rooms- never awake, on drips, clearly on end of life care.
My aunt is in hospital for the 7th time in a year and second since Christmas with pneumonia. She has chest problems which mean they never get rid of it with whatever treatment they give her. She can barely mobilise due to other chronic health problems, is completely blind and declining cognitively. She is now in a cycle of fall- hospital- infection diagnosed- anti-biotics, 3 days re-hab, home, falls within 10 days , hospital etc.
The two junior Drs who run the medical side daily (a consultant visits 2x per week to the ward) are dead on their feet. I thought one was going to cry yesterday he was so pale and exhausted looking. He said the hospital is fuller than it has been since Covid.
Personally, I would not prolong my aunt's life with antibiotic treatment. She is miserable and failing.

When you say she can look after herself but refuses to, the article says she had personal care and used a wheelchair, did she not need this? My feeling was that she refused to walk and that's why she used a wheelchair, that's the impression I got from the article.

Because the care home don't want to be sued for negligence when he chokes on his dinner.

In the same way, we don't allow anorexia patients to refuse food.

The pathologicalisation of selfishness is ridiculous.

Even when someone is cutting themselves?

Where in this report does it say she did this, a 'gotcha' like that just evidences my point.
'Look what you made me do'.

Exactly. A lot more to this story than at first glance.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate even if someone was choosing to cut themselves, does that make it excusable to behave like this woman and be abusive, aggressive and derogatory to people?

My friends dad was very elderly, in a care home, he knew he didn't have long to live, he wanted real food, he knew it was a danger to him but wanted it anyway. The care home even blocked the family taking him out to a garden centre in his wheelchair because they knew the family would let him eat whatever he wanted.
This is in no way comparable to an anorexic patient.

I have no sympathy for these continual demands by people who contribute nothing to our system and take extortionate amounts from it

1930's Germany called, wanting its "useless eaters" propaganda back.

while their families take no responsibility.

Why are the family responsible for a patient? Why should they be? Kinship care is the biggest Govt swindle there is: pay people subsistence benefits to care for relatives, forcing people to stop working (and stop paying income tax) in order to care for relatives at far far less than the legal minimum wage. And by "people", we are usually talking about women. What "families taking responsibility" looks like is women leaving the workforce, women in poverty on benefits, women losing occupational pension contributions because of not working, women's careers going up in smoke. To do what: care for a sibling that you never chose to have? A child that you didn't think would be disabled when you were TTC?

provided they are competent to decide and not a risk to their neighbours, they can.

From the perspective of not wanting to be sued for negligence, its the same.

we do unless they are judged to lack capacity andthen they have to be sectioned.

I’m so sorry that happened to you. I agree with what you’re saying with the proviso of - it seems like she did get a lot of help, apparently still is, and also to the detriment of likely all of the people trying to help along, with other patients in the ward, and those that were not able to be in the ward because of the bed availability.