Hi all,
It's a really really long one, sorry for the war and peace essay.
I was just wondering if we had a case or if I have misplaced anger, I don't want to waste anyone's time like solicitors or whatever but I also don't want this to happen to anyone elses family if it can be avoided, I'll bullet point as it's a very long horrible story:-
My dad was breathless, couldn't sleep and had chest pain. (At the beginning, not sure if this is relevent)
•My dad (77 years old) got poorly in January, breathlessness and was sent for a scan on a Friday, on the Tuesday doctor rung up and said you need to go to hospital we think it may be covid related as you have fluid on your lungs, we'll send an emergency ambulance, 4 hours later no ambulance so I rung asking if I should just take him up to the hospital and they said no, an hour later ambulance people called him and said they agree it sounds covid related and asked if a family member could drive him up to hospital (risking family member to covid), so I drove him up and they sat him in a&e (risking other people to covid since they said that's what they thought it was), A&E did some tests and also said they thought it was covid related and sent him home, wouldn't treat him and it took us four days to get him a test which came back as negative so we called doctor's and they did the same thing with the ambulance and then they didn't take him.
•My dad got worse so he went for a blood test at the doctor's, doctor rung up and said they were bad and he needed to go to the hospital and again, they said they'll sent an emergency ambulance who didn't take him so we took him up to the hospital ourselves and they admitted him, they found out he had heart failure but blamed his breathlessness and sleeplessness on anxiety and said that the doctor's were making it sound worse than it was so they'd take him in hospital, he was fine otherwise, my dad came home with medication but was a lot worse state than when he went in, he had fluid on his legs and could barely walk but they still realeased him, he also had terrible thursh in his mouth.
• My dad got worse so we took him to the hospital again where he was put on another ward who said the same, heart failure and they were going to give him fluid - he was treated so badly that he called me every 5 minutes to say I needed to come pick him up or he was going to kill himself, I rung the ward who said he was fine, he didn't want to leave and to ignore him. My dad rung again and I told him to call a nurse, he rung his buzzer and a nurse came 15 minutes later and was quite rude to him (I was on the phone and she didn't know) I told him to put her on and she told me she'd get someone in charge to ring me back, I waited another hour or so with my dad ringing me every 5-10 minutes or so telling me the same thing so I eventually went up to the hospital and they wouldn't let me up (understandable with covid) but they also wouldnt bring him down and he couldn't get down himself so they were keeping him against his will in a way, eventually a doctor came to see me in the waiting room and said they'll give him some tablets and I could pick them up later and he could go home, later on I received a call but missed it so I called the ward back and a nurse answered saying he has no medication there and it was nothing to do with the ward so we spent half an hour calling round trying to figure out where the call came from and where we needed to go etc but couldn't find anywhere else so we called the ward again to see if they had any idea and the same woman answered and was quite rude saying she had already told me its nothing to do with them and they don't have my dad's medication, luckily another nurse over heard her and informed her that they actually do have the medication and we can come pick it up, my husband went and they led him to the ward to pick it up, the same ward they wouldn't let us get my dad because of covid ..
• the next day the hospital called and asked me to take my dad back in for fluid, promised he wouldn't be on the ward that made him want to kill himself but he needed a few days in hospital for fluid, they called 3 hours later asking me to pick him up and I found him in a wheelchair next to the revolving door in his hospital gown absolutely freezing (as he couldn't walk) so that make me angry as they could have brought him down when I got there keeping him warm, when I got him home I found that they had left all the IV needles in.
•He was taken into the hospital again the next day and was on AMUB for a day or so and was sent home with different medication.
He spent a week at home and he became really confused, like think dementia confused and was in a lot of pain so we called the ambulance who did his stats and said he was fine, I was there and said are you joking you only need to look at him to know he isn't fine and then they did his blood pressure on his other arm which showed it was extremely low so they took him in, they were sat outside the house for about an hour doing paperwork so we were under the impression that it wasn't that bad, then that morning we got a call at 3am ish to say that he was very poorly, they are taking him to the CCU but they don't expect him to make it and they'll call us to come and say goodbye as it's not just his heart but his kidneys and liver is affected and basically he's going into organ failure.
He was in the CCU and the treatment actually started working and he was moved to a ward so I called them and they told me he was clinically stable and they said he isn't dying.
The next day they said they were transferring him to a kidney specialist hospital thing soon and whatever so I rung the day after and they said he was too poorly to be transferred as he had suspected sepsis so we left it a couple of days.
A couple of days later a doctor rung me and said he doesn't have sepsis, it's not his kidney or liver and that it's just his heart so they're gonna give him medication through an IV and then when he's strong enough they are gonna send him home with oral tablets and he's okay she even said he wasn't confused even though he didn't know where he was or who I was, a little later we got a call from a nurse on the ward asking if we have everything we need at home for him and to get carers into place as he's coming home in the next day or so.
I got a call the next day and thought it was a call to bring him home but it was call to say theres nothing more they can do and they are stopping treatment and come to say goodbye.
My dad passed away sadly and the death certificate states heart failure (which we knew), sepsis and acute kidney failure (what he apparently didn't have).
If you've got this far thank you for reading, I just feel really let down and think more could have been done, I'm not even saying my dad would have still been here but there's been so much emotional distress etc but I don't know if it's just my greif so was just wondering.. thank you.