To expect proper bedding for dd in hospital

[endlesstidying]

Been thinking about this and its still annoying me a week later so thought I'd ask the MN jury.

We had to call an ambulance for dd last week. She was admitted overnight onto the observation ward in the childrens hospital and they finally found her a bed just after midnight. When we got there the bed had a bottom sheet and that was it. She was exhausted by that time so I tucked her up under my coat and went to ask for a blanket and pillow. The nurse said she'd look but wasn't sure if she'd be able to find any and she didn't.

When I went to the toilet I noticed that other children were sleeping under parents coats and no one had pillows. Most of the adults were walking about cubicles as they were cold and the windows were open. The staff said they couldn't close them as they were too high up and it was freezing

Eventually I went back to A&E and asked for loudly demanded blankets and finally got half a dozen and after tucking dd in went along the ward and offered one to each parent who took them happily - this was at about 3 in the morning.

I then got told by a nurse to mind my own business and that I'd get the staff in trouble when tey were only trying to help. She seemed really upset and angry with me to be honest.

Was i being unreasonable? Would you have done the same?

I am just at this whole thread....the lack of blankets and the thefts.

How can people be SO stupid as to steal from the NHS?!?!?

To the parents that say they aren't allowed to leave their children in paed wards, er I would be complaining. My DD is a student paed nurse, and one of her jobs was to sit with kids while the parents went for some food/sleep/shower/break.

As someone further up said, paed nurses are in locos parentis, so they cannot tie you to your childs bed.Ridiculous.

I'm not surprised at this. I've worked for the nhs for years, pillows, decent sheets and blankets are like gold dust.

Pillows are a huge problem. Most of the problem on my ward is people being discharged. The ambulance crew turn up with stretchers with one pillow, our patients (geriatric medicine) quite often need two/three pillows so we send them on with the crew. We never get them back. We then have to pay for more out of our ward budget.
We can sometimes get some from the linen room (if they have spare) but quite often they have to be ordered from the supplier which can take a few days. If it's a high turnover ward, you've got no hope of getting one quickly.

Blankets, pillows and bed sheets - linen services are contracted out. Every hospital is allocated a certain amount per week. Some are kept in reserve in the main stores. Again, if there is a high turnover of patients, we can go through our allocated amount quickly. As you can imagine on a geriatric ward, we go through loads because patients can soil them or get food/drink on them frequently.

Most wards are fiercely protective of their stock. We ring other wards all the time but they often say they have no stock, even when they have a cupboard full.

It usually takes a complaint to upper management (if you can get hold of them) to get some.

It's a pain in the arse!

Nearly every time I have anything to do with an NHS hospital I witness situations like this. Almost everyone I know has had at least one such experience. An elderly relative of mine is currently in a hospital with suspected gangrene in his toes. Every day when I phone I'm told the diagnosis still isn't confirmed as they are still waiting for podiatry and the surgeons to visit - manana, whatever. Yesterday a nurse I spoke to only spoke to me reluctantly, v rushed and brusque - she wanted me to speak to my uncle directly and ask him about whether or not he had gangrene and whether his toes would need amputating! In January, I visited someone else in another hospital and an old man in the next bed was hurriedly discharged in his hospital gown back home where he was living alone - no one knew if his family had been told or whether he even had his keys.
Why should we be so grateful for the NHS? How do they manage in other countries with advanced economies which fund and manage their healthcare differently? I've heard that while these healthcare systems have their share of problems, they are on the whole much more efficient than the NHS!

As a country we are much too dependent on the welfare state.