To be disgusted about the treatment of elderly in hospital?

[happilyeverafta]

I’m currently in hospital and on a orthopedic ward where I’m the only patient under 70 (I believe, I’m 35)

The 5 elderly ladies here have varying degrees of ‘illness’ and as far as I can tell none are suffering from dementia just poorly ladies, bless them.

I arrived here last night and the welcome I received was as if David Beckham (insert other celeb crush if required) had walked into the ward swinging his todger around - they were all saying how great it was to have a ‘youngster’ for once. They also added I wasn’t likely to moan or ask for stuff....

The lady in the bed next to me has horrific facial injuries and covered in bruises. She’s 82. She started chatting to me and we had a lovely conversation (I will admit now I’m a sucker for a Nan type figure!). She’s clearly very sore and scared, nurses told me she’d been beaten up in her own home and thrown down the stairs and “to watch out as she screams out in the night due to be scared/nightmares” all days whilst rolling their eyes at me.

Last night she asked for some water and the nurse shouted at her that “you have half a cup we are busy so stop mythering” she explained Ste was very thirsty. In the end I gave her my hug as she was getting distressed.

This morning she was asleep as the nurses arrived on shift - they came in and shook her & shouted to wake her which frightened her she started crying, I then witnessed them rolling their eyes st her talking about her to each other in front of her abs laughing at her, the whole time she is looking at me saying “I think they think I can’t hear or understand them”

They then got her dressed and she was in pain and asking them to be a bit gentler they came from behind the curtain stating she’d made “another Oscar winning performance” and huffing and puffing. Insinuating she’s making it all up.

They then chat to each other in the middle of the ward about how she’s getting worse, clearly has woke up in a mood etc etc.

Aibu or is this how bad the NHS is now with the treatment of patients?! I’m sat here upset and shocked - I’ve not had any obs done or had anyone come to check on me. To be fair I’m ‘OK’ compared to these ladies but they seem so stretched for staff (1 nurse abs about 3 HCA) that the basic level of care and compassion has gone? Or is this how it is on an orthopedic ward?

My mother said she would rather die than go back to the geriatric ward at RBH.

Agree with poppy - film it.

YANBU. I stayed in a similar ward when I was last in hospital and it made me cry. Horrendous.

I have spoken to a nurse who said that Geriatric wards are so hard to recruit staff for, that they often have to take who they can get.

Unfortunately this is what happens when you turn nursing and care work froma vocation to a career pathway with a degree course which eliminates many good care assistants from becoming nurses. I work in a hospital and daily meet staff who seem genuinely not to 'care' at all. It shocks me every time. Hospitals are all meant to practive 'intentional rounding' where every 2 hours every patient is checked, asked if they need anything, pressure areas checked,position changed if required, toileted, offered a drink etc etc. And yet the amount of times I visit a ward to assess a patient and several in the bay are calling to me for help. When I check, their call bells are not within reach and when I ask for someone to come and take them to the toilet, often the nurse in charge is 'on their break'. Would you not check peoples toilet needs before your break? I end up helping patients who I know nothing about who are desperate for a wee and having to check their notes to see iof they can walk etc and this delays me doing the assessments I am there for. Obviously understaffing is also an issue, but you can tell the difference between overworked but caring staff and those to whom it is simply a job that often they do not even like. I also agree that ageism is rife in hospitals and I hate it. I am totally in awe of the elderly patients we see, often in their 90's or 100+ and sometimes still living independently. We need to remember what they have lived through and try and learn from them. Please please everybody, report anything that is below standard in care. It is the only way anything will ever change and PALS will demand answers.

Sounds horrific

I don’t like your thread title it insinuates all elderly patients are treated like this

They are not, certainly not on my watch! (HCP)

Complain, complain, complain

Please ignore those saying film it. You do not have the right to do this. Dignity and respect has already been compromised. This would add to it. I’m stunned that so many people have not considered this fact. Your concerns will be taken seriously but please don’t covertly film vulnerable patients.

I wish you better and I’m glad you care so much. People like you make the world a better place.

Sadly, YADNBU.

Our experiences with having elderly parents in hospital over the last few years have been utterly appalling.

Please report this, the treatment sounds appalling.

Treatment of the elderly by carers and heath care professionals is becoming worse. My Gran was in a care home with dementia until she died and one staff member was suspended for shouting in her face and threatening to hit her. She died in January 2016 but I still wish I could get hold of the piece of filth who treated her like that. I don’t know why these scum bags take on roles caring for vulnerable people.

There is no excuse whatsoever for this type of abuse, and it is abuse.
I agree about reporting it.
Firstly she gets beaten up in place she should feel the most safe, then she gets treated like a rat by so called professionals. Has she not endured enough.
There's a special reservation in the pits of hell for whoever did that to that poor defenceless elderly lady.
I hope to God they catch them ASAP.

Do you what. Miss my mum and dad as I do. I'm glad they died relatively young. I mean what's the alternative
getting old, bed ridden, being treated like a burden and having no quality of life, fuck that.

Hope you're better soon, BTW

My dad wasn't treated well when he was in hospital last year until his death.
An image that will always stay with me though is a nurse shouting at an elderly gentleman in the advanced stages of dementia who was cuddling a teddy bear. It makes me cry to even think about it now.

Don't report it to PALS. Theyre as useful as a chocolate teapot. My dad put in a complaint about a nurse who treated him and like shit, and they tried to make out he was the villian. I'd go straight to QCC.

I have experienced the best and the worst of care, both personally and as a hospital professional.

It is sickening, and goes on in residential and nursing homes too. The inspection system is a joke.

We were forced into complaining when both my Dad and my Mum were in hospital - some of the things that happened were appalling.

Do please report it - and I hope you will be better soon.

This is one of the main reasons I stopped working in hospitals. My complaints about the way the HCAs and nurses treated my patients were rarely listened to and I was branded a trouble maker.

Every ward with majority elderly patients (and in the hospitals I've worked in, that is all wards apart from surgical and ED) have been exactly the same as you have described.

I would totally film them. You can film strangers if you have a webcam and are cycling or driving. You are on CCTV in shops etc. People get their cameras out and film all sorts so why can’t you film this abuse.

You could film it and say you've filmed it when you report it.

Words to the effect of you keeping the film until there is some evidence of your complaint being taken seriously, at which time you'll delete it perhaps?

Your complaint will be dismissed without evidence. The staff will simply deny it or say you misinterpreted what was happening.

Pretty standard for the nurses I've encountered on my many frequent hospital inpatient stints. I have zero respect for nurses as a result. Please please stand up for this lady

The benefit of removing the bursary is you will now only get nurses who actually want to be in the profession, not just because it was a paid for job.

Anyone who wants to argue with this can speak to several of my 'friends' in nursing, half of which only went in to it because it was paid for. And the other half can vouch for what I've said as they see it and hate it too. They didn't and don't give a shit about 'nursing' anyone. They just wanted an NHS job .

Barbaric really. I'm saddened to read this thread. I was pushed up to a female medical ward in the middle of the night a few years ago. I was met by a horrifying sight, an elderly lady walking down the ward corridor covered in blood and it was dripping from somewhere on her face.
There was a lot of shouting, the lady was accusing a nurse of hitting her and the nurse was scoffing at her attitude.
I don't know what went on but something didn't feel right obviously. I didn't report it at the time and it's always annoyed me.
I don't think these things are that uncommon, my own experience wasn't that pleasant there either.

Exactly Brasty. I would hope that there would be enough leverage in the fact that you say you have it on film to get it taken seriously.

I've been in hospital several times over the last 10 years or so. Every time I've been in wards/bays with elderly ladies and they've all been lovely. However, the nurses often won't come and bring them a bedpan when they are absolutely bursting. They ring multiple times (especially at night) and are ignored. Sometimes a nurse floats by and says, "We are very busy, I'll bring you one when I'm free". Quite often the poor lady then wets the bed and TWO nurses have to come and change all the bedding which takes them lots of time and one can't help wondering why they didn't just bring the bedpan and save themselves a lot of bother. One time the lady next to me was left in her wet sheets until morning. At that hospital, I later had the opportunity to meet Matron, visiting the ward - when she asked me how my stay had been I told her the truth about the nurses. When I've been well enough to get out of bed, I will usually chase down the nurses wherever they are on the ward and keep insisting they come and attend to poor old patient but most patients won't do this. I would complain to Matron for sure. Unfortunately, only us, not yet elderly, patients have any clout. I really don't want to be an in-patient or a care home resident when I am older (filled with dread).

Totally disgusting - and clear abuse.

Last week I was on an NHS ward and there was an elderly lady who clearly had some memory issues and pressed her alert button (very) regularly. Without exception the nursing staff were kind and patient with her. I've written to the hospital to say that they were a real credit to the ward.

That’s awful. I’d record the sound, I don’t see why not.

I’m a support worker and have seen lots of mistreatment in hospital. It’s fucking shit. Sadly I think lots of people do go in to caring professions with some kind of matyr complex and just love a moan. I can’t understand it. Definitely report that is abuse.