Shaking with rage, can't sleep, NHS treatment of elderly

[Krupkrups]

My Grandma (89) has finally come out of hospital tonight finally after nearly nearly 5 weeks.

There's been nothing wrong she had a fall nothing broken, nothing but they wouldn't let her go home my uncle has lived with her for past 8 months since his divorce and she had a career who comes on a lunchtime. They said because she didn't have anyone at home which is bullshit, then social services got involved who were a shower of shite, then the hospital 'forgot' to discharge her twice despite my parents, uncle and care team being at home twice waiting.

Before going into hospital she could;

Get herself and dressed nicely

Get Downstairs / upstairs

Get herself to toilet and wipe herself - no incontinence pants

Make herself food and drinks (hot drinks, kettle on etc.)

Do crosswords

Move around the house with, slowly and with the help of a stick and frame but she did

Her memory was clearly going and she has slowed down cognitively in conversations but she knew we all were still enjoyed face times from my children, still read the paper.

She's come out and frankly it's like she's come out of a Victorian asylum, I am heartbroken, she looks deranged when she's awake sunken eyes strange rolling eyes, has lost an absolute load of weight - she was always very slender possibly too slender before now she looks like a famine survivor.

She is incoherent most of the time when awake.

Can't get out of bed / apparently is imobile - well yes she is now

Can't feed herself isn't eating when being fed

Is wearing adult nappies which have to be changed and the carers are changing and wiping her mess

Is covered in bed sores

I am weeping and raging I feel like driving to the hospital and punching the nurses in that ward in the face!!!! What have they done to her.

NO People are on illness/disability benefits in many cases because they are on NHS waiting lists for things like hip and knee replacements. And in a lot of cases these are from manual jobs

It's possible, but from what I understand, this is an issue that the State is loath to touch because, well, it's so big. At that scale, a cover up will begin. Frankly, it all went on at Gosport and it became headline front-page news across all papers in the summer of 2018 I think, but nobody has ever been held to account - so that has given the green light to go ahead with it, really.

I mean, seriously, no journalist seems able to address this issue - only the likes of Sonia Poulton and Jacqui Deevoy who are a bit off-piste, too far into conspiracy theories for most tastes (including mine), and certainly not MSM.

Care home relatives have complained they've been sidelined by the Covid inquiry.

But i've never heard anyone, either in Govt the NHS or anyone else, blame the patient

YOU upthread.

Ive never heard anyone blame the patient Yet thats what you have just done

Referring back to a post by @MistressoftheDarkSide - yes, by all means raise hell on behalf of your late parent but imo do not conflate it with grief, or you will not get over their death. You will be at cross purposes as the State's job is to drag things out, gaslight you, victim-blame - these are creditable tactics as far as it is concerned. They do all know they are doing wrong and getting away with murder so have a nasty, defensive attitude towards anyone trying to go after that, they can see you coming a mile off.

It is like being surprised at what Putin is doing in Ukraine and believing, as a Russian citizen, that you can go through the proper channels in holding him to account - good luck with that.

Do file a complaint - otherwise they can make out all is well in their world, but don't put your heart and soul into it, if that's possible. I logged a complaint with the Nurse & Midwifery Council about one of its registrants - if you want an A-Z of its tricks and tactics over many years, check out my Pinned Tweet on my Twitter/X account Grayling Legacy or Anyone But Grayling (refers to Chris, my former Epsom MP).

Yes fair point, can see i worded that very badly.... however i was more referring to blaming the patient IN hospital ie "they shouldn't be here" NOT what got them there...

And the NHS St Helier nr Sutton and the NMC are currently being discussed on Musmnet due to an incident arising at the end of last month!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5300164-yet-more-disgraceful-nhs-behaviour-against-nurses?page=1

Re the poster who said it would be good that the whole kit and caboodle is being relocated to a spanking new hospital in Sutton, well, be careful what you wish for.

There was a public 'consultation' on this issue a while back - it was the perfect microcosm of NHS overreach and what they do to your parent with DNR, in that loads of locals came out in opposition to it at public meetings - but never mind, they're going to go ahead with it anyway!

In some ways what they were doing with those two hospitals is the Tory tactic - and NHS tactic used with your parent - in that they run it down so you no longer feel it is worth preserving anyway.

Think of how long it will take for an ambulance to travel from Sutton to Epsom or Ashtead... how many will die stuck in a traffic jam en route. How easy would it be for an Epsom resident to keep tabs on their ageing parent when they are so far away? Not easy at all, of course.

They'll get their own rooms in Sutton, so I'm told. This is seen as a selling point - erm, it also makes it easier to kill them off with no witnesses, actually.

Anyway, what we are mostly talking about on this thread is 'passive euthanasia' and it turns out this is legal in this country. It's unclear whether the family needs to be consulted beforehand but the NHS takes the view that what you don't know can't hurt you - it can kill your parent, of course.

This from the Times, June 2019 - before Covid. It outlines the legal position in other countries re euthanasia.

I keep getting calls from a private number Im sure its to do with my elderly DMS care but i cant return the call. They expect us to walk around all day with our phones literally glued to our palm

I'm sorry you re having a hard time of it right now.

This is literally terrifying but I’m glad you are sharing these details. People need to know.

These are all fair points, but for me, what’s so often missing (assuming the patient has capacity which I realise is often not the case) is consultation with the actual patient themselves. My dad, even after being given his prognosis (and having no dementia, which I realise makes all the difference) was adamant he wanted to keep fighting until he no longer could. To this day I will feel conflicted as to what the hospital did once he was no longer able to articulate this, but at least while he could still talk and state his wishes the staff did do everything possible to honour them.

However, if the same thing happened to someone like my mum who is passive in the extreme where medical issues are concerned and just says ‘all right’ to whatever she is told will happen, and if that person had no one to advocate for them - well, I don’t like to think too much about that. My mum lives with me and I am her carer, but not everyone like her has anyone to advocate.

The day after my dad died - 2011 - I discovered that a DNR had been placed on him without my being told. it explained why - at one point - I was called in to the hospital when Dad was refusing to let them stick a needle in to take blood.

"Please yourself." he told me "but when you find your father's body lying over in that building [pointed out of building towards morgue] you'll be a sorry lassie".

I only found out about the DNR because his name was on a whiteboard in the ward office with "NFR" written on it.

"What does that mean? NFR? Not For Resuscitation? Who made that decision?"

I was passed from an auxiliary to a nurse to a doctor who blamed another ward.

I sent off a letter of complaint. The reply from the doctor who'd placed the order said that my letter "raised some interesting questions" and that I 'might be interested to hear" that staff had rececently attended a training day about POAs.

@WearyAuldWumman I’m so sorry for your experience. 💐 So your Dad didn’t sign a DNR in the hospital, he just refused to give a blood sample? Was the POA already active when he went into hospital?

I have POA for my elderly Dad (not currently activated) and he has a DNR on file with his GP. As he’s made this decision before the POA is activated, I assume that I need to follow it.

But if your Dad didn’t ever sign a DNR, who the heck had the right to place him under one?

Thank you for your kind advice, sincerely. I am remarkably calm considering and hope I have enough self control and awareness to navigate this without being utterly consumed by it.

Hopefully the first step has been taken today with almost an hour long call with a very sympathetic lady from the Coroners office. The mere fact that he was a nuclear test veteran who did clean up on an Australia site for two years may be enough to trigger an investigation, never mind the shit show of how the GPs, other NHS agencies and our local council both in terms of social care and housing have behaved towards my Dad and with regard to my SM whose significant mental health issued were dealt with so poorly my Dad had to leave the marital home for his own safety, after she became physically abusive. She was discharged from a Section in less than two weeks by an arrogant psychiatrist who ignored years of recorded mental health issues and delusional antipathy towards my Dad, which had escalated exponentially due to "delirium". His advice was that they should work on their marital differences. He's top of my list for culpability.

My cold fury is aimed at the lack of communication with ourselves and between agencies, complete disregard for safeguarding of two vulnerable elderly people, complete apathy and the hiding behind "confidentiality" and "capacity" every time we raised concerns, while if my SM said "jump" they all said "how high".

Sorry for ranting. It is an incredibly fraught situation and I dare say I'll get little more than "we will review our practises" or "lessons will be learnt" if that, but at least it will all be on record, and hopefully one or two officious, cold blooded specimens in the LA will be inconvenienced by having to answer awkward questions.

Sorry that was @NewspaperTaxis - I lost my quote somehow!!

So sorry that happened to your dad. It beggars belief that this is so widespread and is shrugged off by clinicians in the way it so often seems to be.

Sorry to read all these, but not surprised.

The vast majority of the people I'm talking about cannot eat or toilet without help and are bedbound and confused and scared most of the time they are awake, that's not a life myself or many other people would choose. Sometimes it is much more humane to let people peacefully die a natural death than to keep them in a world of pain, fear and confusion just because you can. That's where playing God comes in and its not right, people understandably fear losing their loved ones but the truth is that its kinder to accept that the human body has limits and we simply aren't made to live beyond certain years.

I wouldn’t choose that either, and I get where you are coming from. But you’re still talking about others making the decision for them. Are you talking about people with or without capacity?

Yes absolutely, but that doesn't mean there isn't acceptable communication with those who have capacity or with their relatives who may have power of attorney if they don't. It's about having basic respect for the rights and dignity of others and providing them with information to take decisions or why decisions have been taken.

Your explanation, for me, highlights everything that is wrong with NHS care. Those in it think they have power to do to patients without any clarity of information.

Treating elderly people is a hugely difficult topic. In my family I have seen two similar examples with very different outcomes.

Person A (previously living independently) had a fall and broke her hip. Taken to hospital, operated on. Is now wheelchair bound in pain with dementia, catheter, living in a care home, no real understanding of her situation.

Person B (previously living independently) had a fall and broke her hip. Taken to hospital, not operated on. Died a couple of days later.

Person A is my DM. I hate what has happened to her. From what I have understood, her decline was entirely predictable. Low level neglect in hospital: dehydration, malnutrition, UTIs, lack of physiotherapy. All typical of elderly care in our run down 'requires improvement', not even 'safe' local hospital.

Person B also a family member.

I can't help but feel that Person B's treatment of no surgery and made comfortable was kinder.

Simarly, aged 85, a relative of mine tripped over the dog, broke her hip, had it replaced and was up and about again within a couple of weeks. She's 89 now, still walking the dog.

I'd hate for treatment to be rationed due to age rather than fitness. Where is the line drawn, particularly as a pp, nurse, has argued for people not to be given full and Frank disclosure. Who makes the decision and how is it communicated.

In an awful lot of cases, people do usually have capacity, but don't at the time the key decisions need to be made. Acquired delirium is an absolute bugger.

It is absolutely true as well that culture influences all decisions, especially something as subjective as a person or a team deciding what someone else's best interests are. And that's national culture, team culture, professional culture, individual cultural understanding.

Bedsores are, in my opinion, a clear sign of neglect, @OldCottageGreenhouse. I trained as a nurse in the 80s and very few patients developed bedsores because we nursed them properly. Immobile patients were turned regularly, and their pressure areas were monitored. I worked under Sisters who would have hit the roof if a patient under our care had developed multiple bedsores.

Absolutely this. My MIL is 86 but genuinely (as I have chronic health and mobility issues) healthier and fitter than I am at 57, and has no dementia. The fact that some people presumably would argue for someone like her to deprioritised for, or even refused, medical treatment based on perceived age-based outcomes, is just horrifying to me.

I just wish that people treating my DM had been honest. Too many times we were told XYZ would happen except it didn't or only happened after repeated chasing.

DM would need antibiotics (UTI) except that this required a doctor who was elsewhere so DM would have to wait until the next round the following day. ABs prescribed but then another long wait for them to actually arrive on ward. Then a long wait for them to actually be administered.

This was repeated with so many things.

I do wish they had just said 'we won't bother with the surgery because the aftercare will be so woeful'.