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.

I found most hospital nurses to be amazing.
What I really dont understand is why they can't make any attempt to talk quietly at night?
Discussions and chat took place in loud voices all night often accompanied by raucous laughter.
Just try whispering a bit. So simple. It doesn't cost anything and would help patients sleep.

Yes they always shout. I think they get used to talking to deaf patients. They don’t realise it keeps other people awake.
I think generally have a hard job to do and have to put up with people like me who complain when it is noisy. They are poorly paid for what they do.

This!! Totally cunty behaviour if you can't empathise with someone else's condition.

@Smellslikesummer private health care. Fewer patients. Higher nurse to patient ratio. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the lack of funding of the NHS and the staff shortages?

Actually, hospitals can’t help where they put her. The demand for cubicles, beds on wards, patients needing to be moved from AE is higher than it’s ever been. Sometimes there isn’t the luxury of choice unfortunately.

😞

There used to be. They seem to have been abolished in the name of “progress”. 🙄

My uncle was in hospital and was driven mad by an elderly man with dementia who spent about 90 seconds building up to making a 'cock a doodle do' - sort of chirrups and clucks then this 'cock a doodle do' then he'd go silent for a couple of minutes and then it would all start again. It was unbearable, interminable. He made no other sound apart from occasional groans. Really sad but awful as well. He was moved off the ward.

But it’s a fact?

There's always one noisy patient on a ward. Screaming, swearing or snoring.
Best to take headphones so you can get some sleep!

We're in a retirement area so have two cottage type hospitals for recovery post surgery, end of life for dementia patients in towns, on bus routes who are fantastic. However they're smaller.

So many dementia, surgical are stuck in our main hospitals which are out in the country a bitch to get to and from. Our council shut all their homes years ago.

It's a mess

You don’t know why the lady you had a go at is finding it so difficult- you can’t sympathise with one condition but because you don’t know the fact kick off at possibly something that this lady can’t help. Some people have disabilities that you can not see.
we spend an awful lot of time in hospital and I don’t think a single one of our stays has been lovely, peaceful and restful.
nurses are stretched and do their best and then have to deal with people moaning about them. You should have minded your own business - if the nurses felt it necessary to have a chat with the lady complaining they would of/ nothing gives you the right. Yes she could of just been a cock but again you should keep your beak out

Wow, that's really mean! I had a hospital stay last year and there was a lady opposite me with dementia. She was crying out for her husband bless her. There were a few comments from the other women, but it was more kind exasperation than being mean - she was calling her husband's name and they were saying 'he's gone to the shop' etc. It wouldn't have occured to me to moan and complain about it, it's completely unavoidable. I would have said something too, if people were being that nasty.

I think I’ve already explained that I understand this and thought it was worth asking once anyway. It took max thirty seconds and I went straight back to bed. Sometimes the staff are too busy elsewhere to be alert to a problem where you are so it’s worth asking the question. I don’t understand why I’ve got so much hostility for this.

go private then youll get your own room. Until then people have to tolerate others.

I’ve also put up with a woman doing a Michael Jackson HEE HEE regularly and falling out of bed and not said a word. It was the fact that not only was she upsetting every patient, she was having to die publicly and without dignity. I’ve been treated in a cupboard for over a day as well and not said a word.

I had THREE noisy sets of people surrounding my bed after major surgery.

OMG they moved me off the recovery room even though I wasn't well enough to be moved on because they needed the space for an urgent surgery patient. They said it will be way more restful for you up on ward anyway. Ha ha ha ah ahhahaha mad bastards, how they lie!

Sadly on the ward I got put up to were three women who were in various crisis involving three sets of families, children, relatives, legal representatives, interpreters, all day and night speaking half in their own languages and half in English. Making fraught and desperate phone calls at the top of their voices 24/7. I swear.

Thank god for hardcore drugs, earplugs, and noise cancel headphones with bluetooth connected to my iPad (best things I ever took to hospital).

I agree with you but I couldn't afford to go private.

My surgery was urgent and extensive and that was only necessary because I'd been seriously injured by the NHS in a minor procedure.

If I'd had the money to go private, I'd have sued the NHS for the cost of needing to do so. But unfortunately my life circumstances meant that I had to depend on the same institution that had severely injured me to 'repair' me.

Hospital was so barbaric and traumatic and the 'nurses' (I don't think they were qualified) made so many errors that could have seriously injured or killed me that I do suggest anyone who can afford to take private healthcare or insurance certainly does so. NHS is killing people at this point.

I think it's bloody awful that dementia patients who are constantly shouting out or exposing themselves, or getting out of bed are put in a ward with other ill people, who are then just expected to put up with it. Honestly I'd be terrified of I was in a ward with someone like that. Id be scared to go to sleep (although with that level of noise I guess there's not much chance of that anyway)

Patients with dementia are much safer in a bay where they can be seen by staff at all times, than in a side room on their own. People should learn some patience and Compassion. Plus you're right, statistically it could well be her and many MNers in the future.

The thing is @LemonPeonies the dementia patients might be safer in a ward, but the other patients are less safe because they're there.
Who wants an elderly person trying to get into bed with them while they're asleep, even if it's not their fault? Especially if you've got tubes or wires that could get knocked or disturbed. It's definitely not the responsibility of other ill people to babysit them.

Often it’s an unfortunate mix of if you’re ill enough to be admitted, you will be babysitting other patients to an extent (the number of people I’ve used my call button for because they think muttering “nurse” is going to get them one) you do have to have some patience with the more ill patients who will cry out - and I’ll reiterate again, I asked on behalf of the dying lady not because she was a nuisance but because I felt intensely sorry for her and some of the other very ill people on the ward, just in case the nurses had been too busy to notice the issue - and sometimes you’ll be so sick you can fall asleep on an uncomfortable plastic bed even in A&E with the running around and shouting and bright lights.

Having spent more than 2 weeks on a 24-bed ward where only 3 of us were under 60 and most of the rest had dementia, I totally get how infuriating it is (I don't think I got more than 2 or 3 hours of unbroken sleep the whole time I was in there), but I also get that there is no point in kicking off about it.

Some of the things that happened were quite amusing, like the lady who was convinced my dad was her husband and used to shout at him and call him names, because he was chatting to his "fancy woman" (ie me) instead of her. My dear old dad took to going and chatting to her before he came over to see me, which seemed to work. There was another lady who was adamant that she couldn't walk or get out of bed, but would get up in the night and roam the ward looking for her cat and calling it.

Your moany neighbour is BU, OP. The patients can't help it, and her constant griping about it is probably getting on everyone's tits.

Tbh, I would enquire whether the lady could be moved to a more appropriate ward. Wouldn’t be rude about it though.

It's not bothered me at all, though obviously its difficult to rest.

I find this difficult to believe.