Worst behaviour you’ve encountered in hospital ward

[Ithinkthatsenough]

I am probably being U and touchy in posting this as ive just spent the day in hospital having a late d&c...
on ward with 2 other ladies who were chatty, was fine and bearable this morning, after 1/2 hohri knew all about their admissions and problems, children’s schooling, then had to put my headphones in when they started on bowel movements.
I was having an op, cleary due to care, questions asked, they could hear eveyrthinf tooand quite a distressing one

I know many NHS hospitals now have private rooms. My FIL who is in and out of hospital is always in a private room. But he has lots of visitors keeping an eye on him. Last time I was in hospital I was in a Nightingale ward and preferred that.

I was in a mixed sex ward 2 years ago for a week. It was apparently an “assessment” ward so that’s why it was mixed sex. I had lost a lot of weight and my pjs were too big for me (to the stage they were indecent) so my mum had to buy me some smaller ones. The poor old man across from me woke up every hour during the night screaming as he had no idea where he was. If no nurses were about I would calm him down, and explain where he was. But, I don’t remember this annoying me too much. But the time I was annoyed was after my son was born, the girl in the next bed was on her phone on loudspeaker all night. At 3am I demanded to be discharged (they found me another bed instead)

Up to postnatal ward at 11pm...emcs after failed 48 hour labour. Lady in the next cubicle sang amazing grace on loop all night to her baby Very loudly. Other lady spent most of the night on the phone to her husband and mother...literally updating them with every ml of colostrum she'd managed to express.

Thank God I have private health insurance and last time in hospital had a private room. Physically couldn't stand scenarios as above.

On the ward hours after giving birth. DS jaundiced and in need of natural light, so they put me in the corner furthest from the window with three other women who insisted on keeping all their curtains closed.

The partner of the woman opposite threatened to headbutt and tried to fight a doctor who, whilst fighting his way through all these closed curtains, knocked a plastic jug of water off a table.

I was trying to breastfeed DS for the first time, was alone in a chair behind all these curtains, was unable to walk and just sat and cried because I was half-naked and scared that some nutter was going to come crashing through the curtains and land on us.

Relatives of all three other women thought nothing of barging through my corner to get to the sink, all having a good look at us on the way, but glaring if anybody so much as twitched the curtains around their relatives' beds.

One woman had her TV blaring with the headphones not on constantly and another made long, loud phone calls every time she was without a visitor.

A friend recently told me how her young daughter's food would be stolen from the fridge provided for patients while her daughter was being treated for cancer. Her daughter had lost her appetite and her sense of taste for most things, so if there was something she wanted to eat my friend would get it for her, but if it was something that had to be kept in the fridge it would be stolen, and the worst thing was it was the parents of other patients who were stealing it.

My friend's daughter died and this is one of the things my friend still gets upset about now.

A woman on the high risk part of the postnatal ward took very.long.loud telephone calls from all of her family all throughout the night. Plus she had a drip of some sort in and the alarm started going off when it had ended - 10 minutes later no one had come and she hadn't called anyone so I pressed my buzzer and asked the nurse to sort it... not like it was 3am and I'd just settled my newborn

In bristol childrens hospital. Poor mite left all night alone when the dr said he could go home. Mum and uncle had booked a hotel so they weren't having that. He was profoundly deaf and had obvious disabilities. He kept walking round the ward all night.
They turned up the next morning demanding a taxi to exeter and uncle was on his mobile ordering pot saying he had a stressful night

Not really all that bad compared to some of these, but I've never forgotten the woman in the bed opposite me when I had DS by C-section phoning all her friends about her baby and asking their opinion on the name Lily Putt.

Maybe she's on MN? The kid would be an adult now.

I also had money stolen from my overnight bag while I was actually delivering DS in the operating theatre. I think that would have been staff though not patients.

DP was opposite a guy on a ward who was, it seemed, phoning everyone in his contacts to let them know he was in hospital and why.
The first phonecall was that he was in a fight with 1 guy and by the tenth it was 5 Polish guys who were trying to rape his sister and he had single handedly "kicked their asses". He was practically shouting and using really racist language.
When he told the story to DP, DP asked where the Polish guys were as clearly if he had kicked their asses they would be in hospital not him.

After I had DS I had to stay in hospital for a few nights. On the first night I was so tired and after the visitors and DH left I was looking forward to putting my headphones in and watching something on Netflix and falling asleep. It was about half eight and the nurse on the ward opened all my curtains, binned my custard creams (still about that!) told me to take my headphones out. She opened all the other curtains for the other 5 women on the ward and said we should all talk and get to know each other. When I said I was too tired but would like to get to know everyone tomorrow and the nurse had a go at me, saying I was isolating myself and if I wasn't careful I'd get PND. I said that I was just tired as, in case she forgot, I had just had a baby. She came and closed my curtains five minutes later but carried on talking very loudly despite the other women trying to talk in hushed voices. One said that she was with me and was tired too and she started having a go at her too.

The nurse then bitched about me and this other woman and I was now too angry to fall asleep. I went and got another nurse told her what was going on. The other nurse spoke to her and I could hear her shouting in the corridor. It was so strange!

DH in hospital with burst appendix, bed next to him was a local small time gangster who rang a couple of his mates and got them to bring in alcohol and a female friend to attend to his physical needs while they stood guard outside his curtain and nurses turned a blind eye as they wanted a quite night.

I know of a mother of a severely ill baby in NICU who took the time to break into the doctors lounge and rifle through coats and bags, stealing cash and phones. The hospital couldn't pass on the womans details because of patient confidentiality

I was waiting for a d and c after a missed miscarriage but was placed in a ward of six women (who through the thin curtains) I could tell were for surgical abortions. There was one girl who kept screaming to wheel her down next as she wanted the fing sprog out of her a# she wanted to go out on the p that evening. I sat and quietly sobbed

Similarly to so many mine was post c-section. I had been on the ward for 5 days, hadn't slept at all really... (DS and I both had infections so we're woken up for antibiotics/temperature taking etc. throughout the day and night) a woman who was on the ward for 2 days who had her whole family there. 4 year old running around with balloons/jumping on beds. I ended up shouting at them. (Not particularly proud of that but so so tired) and then subsequently finding them in the tv room and apologising profusely at them (so British)

worked as mw on post natal, been sworn at by visitors and patients, had patients smoking, taking drugs drinking on ward, shagging behind curtains, leave babies on ward and go to shops, or pub. One incident partner of one patient came to desk and told me that there was a lot of swearing and shouting in next room, got up to go and see what was going on, the patient who had had a section a few hours earlier ran past me crying into the nursery, I went in to find out what had happened, when partner came in very obviously drunk, screaming abuse threatening to kill her, saying baby wasnt his just horrible, he went to punch her, I stood in front and screamed dont you fucking dare, get out of here now, he grabbed my arm, but thought better of it and left. Very relieved as I was 36 weeks pregnant and about to go on Mat leave, security arrived 5 minutes later, he was banned from the ward. 14 years later I wonder what happened to her and hope very much she didnt stay with him

Husband has recently had a lot of operations.
Twice a prisoner was chained to the bed next door... they were ok, it was the 2 accompanying security guards that constantly ate, talked and watched loud tv ALL night that were the problem.

It was actually a nurse. And I was beside myself after having been in the hospital for 3 days with my dc without more than the odd hour of sleep so I may or may not have been unreasonable. We were in paed intensive care. This nurse was laughing and joking as she was trying to insert a needle into my 2 year old's hand trying to take blood, and kept giggling as she failed to do it. My poor wee one was lying watching her, very ill, in pain and looking utterly lost. I lost my shit and "sacked" her. I had a discussion with one of the senior doctors who agreed to give us a new nurse. Does this sound unreasonable of me? Even now I can't look back and see it objectively. The new nurse was lovely.

Mogon you were not being unreasonable, I'm trying to imagine myself in that situation with my similarly aged DD and think I would have stabbed her in the eye with said needle. Bloody giggling, what part of drawing blood from a baby's hand is remotely funny?!
Tosser.

My vile ex sil standing in intensive care at end of fil bed declaring loudly she wished he’d hurry up and die. He obliged and she proceeded to weep loudly and act as chief mourner at his funeral, if only the other guests knew what a hypocrite she is. FWIW I thought the world of him

All of these when DD was Ill:

One clearly very mentally ill woman on a ward with various physically ill people who needed rest, spent the whole night shouting and wandering round hitting and threatening the other patients. Poor woman obviously needed a different kind of care to that she was given.

As we arrived to visit DD, two ladies were on their way in with clean sheets. They saw us and left, saying they’d be back later. Two hours later a very embarrassed DD told me she was very uncomfortable as her catheter had leaked, and she’d been lying in it for the whole of our visit, hence the abandoned sheet change.

After the catheter was removed DD was taken to the toilet in a wheelchair, on her return she was left for “two minutes” in the chair facing the wall in the private room she was put in after aforementioned Ill woman hit her. An hour and a half later her boyfriend found her in the same position, when he arrived to visit.

God, I could go on and on. Water put out of reach, cleaners banging around the room at 6am, meals containing ingredients she is allergic to.

DD is an adult and is/was very capable of standing up for herself, plus she has family and friends similarly capable. I honestly fear for anyone vulnerable in hospital, with no one to speak up for them.

Mogon yanbu I've had to do that with my son, he's a cardia baby and it's very hard to find a vein, one consultant decided to ignore my advice about which sites were no go areas to try because guess what no one ever got any blood from his arms since birth yet tried 3 times in both arms before finally listening to me.
I refused him the next time I saw him during rounds.

crunchie DH (or any other visitor) could stay with me in my hospital room, so no chance of being left all alone. The care however was excellent. I was neither forgotten or had badly behaved staff.

I'm the postnatal ward after my emcs. Young girl in bed next to me had also had a c section. She spent the first night screaming and moaning that she was in pain. She refused to get up and try and use the toilet, swore at midwives etc. Next morning she disappeared for 45 mins leaving her baby, turns out she had gone for a fag but not told anyone. Her family then turned up and spent the the next couple of hours swearing at each other and pissing about with the curtains. Her boyfriend was in and out all day, stunk of weed, he was obviously going out to smoke a joint every couple of hours. He smelt that bad that the midwives had to have a word. Luckily I left the next day so I dunno if he stopped his joint smoking.