Ward commotion AIBU?

[Mirabai]

So my 88 year old relative fell and broke their hip which required major surgery 2 days ago. Currently on a ward with other frail elderly patients.

This afternoon a bunch of people arrived to see one of the elderly patients on the ward. The patient themself is past communication. Then more people arrived. And then more until there were about 20 people hanging out chatting around the bedside. Pulling chairs from all over. Some had suitcases. They started ordering food from Deliveroo.

I left at 3.30 after they had all arrived assuming they’d go soon. At 7.30 my relative called me in distress as they were still there, exhausted by all the noise. I could hear them all on the phone in the background chatting and laughing - it sounded like my relative was at a party. They’d been there for 4 hours!

My relative had asked nurses repeatedly to ask them to leave. The other patients were equally disturbed and upset by the noise but some were too ill to be able to complain effectively (eg oxygen mask etc). They were also quite concerned about infection risk as some of them were coughing and sneezing. The nurses just asked the people to be quieter and pulled the curtain round the other patients’ beds.

I rang the ward myself at 7.40 to complain to the nurses, expecting someone to step in at this point. But my relative rang back at 8.30 (30 mins after the end of visiting hours) to say they were still there..

I’m thinking of putting in a complaint to PALS tomorow, as I’m not completely sure they won’t return to continue the party.

My question is AIBU to think this U? I’m genuinely doubting myself as the nurses genuinely didn’t think anything was amiss. Is this normal?

Definitely complain, this is unacceptable. It’s usually 2 visitors per bedside.i hope your poor relative is ok.

It's a ridiculous point, they'd just ask them to move. It's not a case of parked care blocking an ambulance.

I don’t have an issue with what people do in private rooms. In this case there’s a carer’s sitting room down the corridor. If they’d all gone in there and closed the door they wouldn’t have disturbed anyone.

No idea how long she’s got.

But it didn’t seem to be a journey to say goodbye to nana. No-one was acfually communicating with her they were just sitting around chatting about ordinary stuff - TV, sport and holidays. If you thought someone was about to die would you party round their bed for 4 hours? That’s not how I would say farewell.

It’s a completely fair point as @cauliflowercheeseplease makes above.

If the patient had gone into crash they’d have had to get lot of people, suitcases and chairs out the way to access the bed.