(Sorry this is long I didn’t realise until I finished!!
)
Dad was taken in via ambulance last year, he’d taken triple morphine tablets when they’d been stopped- I only noticed as I picked up his meds and they were out- put two and two together and he managed to say he took three purple tablets, so I knew what he’d taken. Ambulance gave him two reversals it done nothing. In A&E they done the same, and I said to the Dr it was something else, not just this, was told I did not understand the drug and this was what happened and he was being discharged. I lost my shit- I do understand, I deliver medication training, I am myself on morphine tablets, and dad was on 3 morphine tablets for several years until they stopped them 7 days prior. It was something else. So she said she would order bloods ‘just to give you peace of mind or else you won’t leave will you?!’ 🤔she’s right I wouldn’t have left! An hour later a nurse came to say they were moving dad to the ward as he had a severe infection and his kidneys were failing amongst other things. I asked why the Dr had not come to explain, she smiled looked around and said ‘because you were right and she was totally wrong’. As I left to go to my car and get dads things (I packed as I knew he’d be staying) I seen the paramedics who asked after him, I explain what had happened and they said ‘we knew it was more than that in the ambulance after he didn’t respond the reversal and we told them that when we handed him over’. 🤷🏻♀️.
I know they are stretched, I know they are working short staffed etc etc. I’ve worked in this environment my whole life. I get it, I really do! But so many times I think ‘listen to what the family are telling you’. Yes there are times that families say stuff that make people go 🙄, but then there are so many times that that ‘little bit of information’ makes a big difference to how they are cared for.
One example that springs to mind- Mr j capable of going to the toilet by himself, is able to adjust his clothes, clean himself etc. Mr J just needs help to swing his legs around off the bed to the floor, but he is then able to get up off the bed himself and with his sticks make his way to the bathroom. Mr J will call for assistance as soon as he needs to go, as by the time he gets there the need is more urgent. Mr J rings for assistance and is told someone will come shortly, he rings again and again. Finally assistance comes and Mr J has lost control of his bladder. After this happening several times they decide that a catheter is best. It’s best for the nursing staff, however Mr J has now lost his independence and is likely to get a UTI as he’s had them previously when having a catheter in the past.
Mr J is not a family member, but a service user that was in a residential care facility that I used to deliver training too. Every time Mr J went into hospital the same scenario happened, and this was with qualified nurses at the care facility telling the ward don’t put a catheter in just sit him up on the side of the bed and he can do the rest himself. Yet they still wouldn’t listen. So what hope to ‘families’ have of convincing them????