To have told the lady off in the bed opposite; hospital stay

[Celticliving]

Hi All

I'm very poorly with asthma and lung infection at the moment and have been in hospital since Sunday.

The poor old lady opposite me has dementia and has been chanting/shouting very loudly the whole time I have been here. It's not bothered me at all, though obviously its difficult to rest - she can't help it though.

Another lady was admitted to the bed next to her yesterday morning. Since then, all she has done is shout "oh, shut up," "FFS" etc. She even asked the nurse how long she has to put up with 'that bloody screaming' for.

She's just walked past my bed, tutting and rolling her eyes.

I said "you know she can't help it right!". Reply; 'Whatever'.

I said "You know that might be you one day". Reply; I don't think so.

She's not even hiding these comments and the poor lady's family are looking pretty upset.

Obviously she's as common and uneducated as muck.
Tell the nurse

The poor woman with dementia cannot help it but it would get on your nerves after a while but why doesn't she just put on headset. I remember visiting someone in hospital years ago and a poor old man with dementia kept repeating over and over I want my wife now please, now please. It was amusing and he could not help it but would be hard to listen to it all night. The nurses probably have no other ward to put the lady on.

People in hospital can be absolutely vile. I think pointing out the woman with dementia can’t help it is very calm and measured in the face of such unkindness.

Maybe the woman who complained can't help it either! Maybe she's in because of a brain injury, or maybe she's autistic or even just in a lot of pain and can't tolerate constant screeching and chanting? She's being sleep deprived while she is ill (or she wouldn't be in hospital) I'm not sure why so many people feel empathy with the dementia lady but not the one complaining.
I know id be struggling to cope, probably in tears if that were going on constantly and I couldn't get away.

Because of how she’s behaving not because she’d like the dementia patient to stop impacting her stay.

👍

But it's the way the dementia patient is "behaving" that's causing the upset. Why is your understanding only afforded to one person here?

And private rooms are not usually available as overcrowding has forced the hospital to use these.

Because as reported the “complainer” could choose to behave in a different way, while the woman with dementia can’t. If @Celticliving complains about the behaviour of the “complainer” that could be addressed.

😂
I was on a shared ward for 10 days a couple of years ago with mostly older ladies, one was a chatterbox which was fine, she didn't bother me, but asked every new addition what they were in for, a lady was brought in late one night so of course the next morning the chatterbox was all questions, when asked what her ailment was her answer was "I'm pregnant!" she was at least 75 😂No one ever gets a rest on a shared ward in my experience but it's never boring

But a social insurance system can be terrible for patients with expensive conditions. I have Crohn’s disease. Certain medications put the disease into remission and give me an entirely normal life as a productive member of society. But they cost £12k for every 6 week infusion and in a lot of countries with social insurance systems, patients like me struggle to get them and once they’re on them, they have the terrible stress of insurance companies that don’t understand their condition being in control of their health. Without those meds, my life goes from sunshine and hope to the darkest future I can imagine, early and undignified death, and no chance of doing anything I could have done with treatment. I’m terrified of losing the NHS even if it’s massively imperfect, and a lot of patients with chronic conditions will say the same.

That was supposed to be a reply to a comment above… still learning to use mumsnet.

The reply function doesn’t work for some reason, you need to click on the 3 dots in the corner of someone’s post and select quote to reply to someone!

Thank you!

Hospitals aren’t quiet places!… I spent a week in with my DD & we had a young adult next to us with a LD, he would shout every 2 hours when they checked on him.. he’d shout ‘get off, you’re hurting me!” In really menacing loud voice… it was a bit scary sleeping with just a curtain between us!
then the boy opposite us also screamed and cried every time they checked on him.. his dad would then also get cross with him.. Add to that my daughters checks.. not much sleep was had… during the day we had nurses coming in constantly teaching us the ropes…. I was glad it was during covid otherwise we’d have had siblings and others visitors making noise too, and honestly my brain was frazzled!
I wasn’t rude to anyone though, felt sorry for them all more than for myself

I had to spend 8 nights in the hospital on a orthopaedic surgical ward after having an infected hip joint that went septic. There was around 10-12 beds and it was all women with hip and knee replacement, broken pelvis, bashed up limbs etc. I was the youngest at 44 and there was another woman that clearly had advanced dementia or Alzheimer's and she cried and howled and called for her mum All Night Long. They had to barricade her in her bed and she didn't have a clue about anything that was happening. It was very very sad but honestly by day 3 I was ready to cry with her through lack of sleep and constant disrupted sleep. At one point while I was sobbing into my pillow I actually wished her dead. Obviously I didn't mean it and I certainly didn't say it out loud but I felt terrible. There is a reason they use sleep deprivation as a form of torture.

Another lady had serious learning difficulties and the only way to keep her quiet was an iPad with kids tv on so bloody teletubbies was blasting for 13 hours every day and very loud. If it wasn't that it was there staff trying to cajole her to eat her meals.

It was a total circus and I was desperate to get home. The staff were amazing but they could only do so much. The two women should have been in a ward better sorted to their needs, they were done an injustice .

@Sillywillywoowoo I can't answer for all wards but my bays are enhanced care which means a nurse and HCA so 1 of them always has to stay there at all times. We don't get incidents because of this. It is an elderly ward though so some places may do things differently. They should definitely try and implement the same rules though so at least it's not left unmanned.

I was in hospital with appendictis and in a shared ward. the woman next to me was an alcoholic and doubly incontentinent. she used to wander around the ward looking and leaving a mess iykwim. It was horrible for all the other patients and only when she slipped on the floor on her own shit and knocked herself unconscious did the ward staff finally move her to a private room.

Last time I was in a shared ward, I was on the verge of a nervous break down when I came out and luckily there wasn't anyone as bad as the dementia lady you describe.

I have severe anxiety and depression and couldn't cope with the general comings and goings and day to day chatter around the place. Fight or flight set in and I couldn't do either so my brain went in to melt down mode.

Everyone in there is poorly and struggling with something. The lady being unsympathetic might have early dementia for all you know. Try extending your empathy a little further maybe

Or don't understand the system. It simply doesn't work that way.

Either it's a private hospital or the NHS. In the vast majority of scenarios, those are the two options currently available to us.

If we want change then there needs to be an appetite for reform. Unfortunately right now there isn't, and any party suggesting so would be making themselves extremely electorally unpopular.

That the whole system is creaking at the seams, and conditions and sometimes care in our hospitals are currently below par for everyone, is obvious to anyone who's ever spent time in one. But this is apparently immaterial. It's not the done thing to criticise the sacred cow that is the NHS.

@SerafinasGoose I respect your opinion but have you been to a hospital recently? I hear a lot of people hungry for some type of reform even though they don’t know it and expressing so by complaining and regrettably also by abusing staff.
I’d also be curious to know how expensive those rooms are. I couldn’t pay for the free food let alone a room and that’s more what I meant.
Finally there’s a whole load of government machinery actually dedicated to making us believe everything is wonderful and the NHS isn’t experiencing problems. It isn’t a sacred cow or a national religion and it is creaking. The reason for not criticising is because a lot of us have our lives saved by wonderful staff and the NHS is as large and complex as a small country.

You're lovely, OP. I hope you feel better soon

Yes, since you ask. I spent two weeks on a trauma ward June-July 2022 with a compound lumbar spinal fracture and had a 5-hour operation to insert titanium rods into my spine. I was then was left on my own in a side room to recuperate, and they 'forgot' to remobilize me (allegedly the physiotherapists couldn't find me). This was after having been already totally immobile for the best part of a week beforehand. As a result, I developed two huge pulmonary emboli and nearly died, spending some time afterwards on oxygen in the high dependency ward.

I have not one word to say against the team of wonderful neurological consultants who saved my mobility and put me back together again, and cannot sing the praises of the nurses highly enough. IMO, they don't get nearly as much recognition as they deserve (especially the one who sat up with me holding my hand all night because I was terrified I might be going to die. I often silently bless that nurse).

This doesn't get around the fact that the thrombosis simply shouldn't have happened in the first place, and that it did happen owing to negligence.

It isn't the staff I'm criticising. Conversely, given the conditions they work in, it's amazing they do as wonderful a job as they do. Let alone doing it with a smile on their faces when they have to witness the extremities of human suffering every day.

It's the conditions I am criticising. And the political circumstances in which those conditions have been allowed to take root.

Wow, I'm so sorry that happened to you and that lady!

I couldn't believe it when a nurse told me that if I accepted a bed in a bay with male dementia patients they could get into bed with me - like it was taken for granted that patients in that state are just able to do that.

I know the NHS is in dire straits, but in an ideal world surely patients in this state would be put on specialist wards with a higher staff ratio to stop them compromising their own and others dignity and safety. It's not right how it is right now.