Never been so angry, sad and disapointed in my life

[happymerryberries]

My 79 mother, who suffers from senile dementia has just spent the better part of 2 days lying in hospital with a broken hip. She has had to wait for surgery on her hip because, wait for it, it is a bank holiday.

I have nothing but the greatest respect for all of the staff that have been caring for her. Their profesionalism has been exceptional. But funding means that a frail, confused old lady has spent two days in pain because of underfunding and lack of resources.

And all the way on my 5 hour drive home I kept passing signs that said, 'If you value it, vote for it'

I feel sick with rage.

And what the working life of the staff must be, witnessing the suffering of people that they know can be cured, is boyond me. All of the staff were wonderful, kind, supportive people. Working in that level of underfunding must do their heads in. I only saw it for a weekend and at the end I wanted to storm parliment and ask them what the fuck they have been doing if this is the best we can expect inthe 21st centuary.

Hells teeth, SP if our teacher training is the envy of the worl the rest must be bloody dismal!

And I write as a recently qualified teacher. If the pile of half thought out clap trap I had to wade through was the best, pity help the worst!

hmb, I've worked on orthopaedic wards since the mid-eighties, and can assure you that the NHS is certainly no worse than it was under the Conservatives- it's probably better. And, I'm not a Labour supporter myself.

Unfortunately, Bank Holidays in hospitals are staffed by an on-call team, just like weekends. Usually (as for weekends) there is only one staffed operating theare, and several specialties have to compete for the available theatre time. At weekends, the most urgent case goes first, regardless of who arrived first. It's bad luck when cases get deferred due to more pressing cases, but it would be horribly inefficient to have the same number of staff hanging around at weekends as during the week, just in case there are emergencies to do. Even with the one team, there are some weekends when we do nothing.

I'm sorry your mother has had to wait for her operation, but this is not due to this government. When I started in orthopaedics 20 years ago, we had to add emergencies onto elective lists, which meant that elective cases, such as hip replacements got cancelled if broken hips came in, or the staff had to stay and operate half way through the night. Nowadays, at least during the normal working week, we have staffed trauma lists which mean that the elective cases still get done.

there is a lot of crap, I agree. basing my opinion on my course (which contained a lot of crap in amongst useful stuff) and my experience of being taught in Spain by recently qualified teachers.

how about relative lack of corruption in local government? (I did say relative)

actually, I suppose that the government could have thrown much more money at the service over the past few years, but then we'd all be complaining about something else. We get a very good service for the amount of money that is spent per capita.

I do see your point, to a point. Howver she wasn't bumped for another orthopaedic case, but due to the operating theater being needed to cope with a ruptured spleen. I fully accept that the latter would take presidence, for excellent medical reasons, but the surgion was available...I spoke to him. But the theater was needed for someone else.

yes, when we only have one theatre, orthopaedics often take a back seat, as broken bones rarely kill you (at least not immediately).Ruptured spleens are pretty rare, but when they happen, they need an op urgently.

Looking at my demented mother, writhing on her bed, crying for her mother, i realised that a ruptured spleen was a proirity but i still feel that she deserved better.

I'm so sorry that your poor mum was left in pain for so long, hmb.

OMG, HMB, that's AWFUL!

Oh HMB; no wonder you are angry and upset. I would be spitting feathers.

I am so sorry hmb. Hope mum can make a good recovery from her op.

i'm so sorry about your mum hmb

HMB, I am a nurse, and I do see people in pain and it is horrible. But Labour or any other political party do not have such great control over all aspects of hospital life that this could be altered. And when they do, it seems all too often they should have kept their fingers out of the pie. I'll go in to that more later.

It sounds like an very unfortunate series of events meant that the operation your mother desperately needed could not be done. Although the surgeon was there, the anaesthatist, scrub nurse, Operating assistants, other assisting nurses, and recovery nurses were not there.

It is a crass comparison but the NHS has to be run like a business. Not a profit making one, but one that has to keep its head above water. If they go into debt, the government punish them, either by taking away or refusing to give foundation hospital status or by taking away those precious stars. They may even be (in the future) taken over and run by another more efficient hospital.

There are targets and standards to be met just about everywhere. If the hospital does not normally need more than one fully staffed theatre, then it would not be a wise decision to staff two, 'just in case'. It costs vast amounts of money. If the NHS had this type of money spare, then the taxes would have been put up much more than they have been. The tories plan to make £35 million pounds worth of cuts to public services - WTF?

Please don't think that I am telling you how to vote. I'm going to intentionally 'waste' my vote with the Lib Dems. I like them, and can't reconcile myself with either other main party.

Labour are guilty for crimes against the NHS. A and E waiting targets (4 hour waits) are sometimes seen as a positive but all too often they are not. Patients are rushed into innapropriate and poorly staffed units who are not equiped or even as knowledgable as they should be over the care that this patient requires. This happens to my mum, who works in Day theartre, and now has to try and care for acutely ill patients.

Instead of patients lying in trolleys in A and E, they are lying in trolleys in the middle of wards meaning the ward is overcrowded, the patient is at greater risk of pressure sores and also infection is more likely to spread. Likewise, the tories are guilty of introducing contract cleaners, which I strongly believe created the current MRSA problems to a large extent.

The whole point of this post, which I know probably seems clumsy and irrelevant is to try and hopefully help you understand that all government is going to be bad government in one way or another. I really wouldn't want you to base your vote on your poor mum's experiences. I do believe that the tories would be even worse though!¬ I really hope I haven't offended you. Please keep us updated on your mum's progress, is she out of theatre yet?

I am a regular but I don't want anyone to know dh is a doctor.

dh has just worked 4 days, 7:30am - 10:30pm in emergency surgery in a large hospital.

He has come in really down and upset each night as he has spent a large part of each day helping to patch up people who have got drunk and punched through a windon/punched each other/somehow managed to hurt themselves. They take up so much of him time as, since they come in actively bleeding, they have to go to the top of the list and people such as hmb's mum get pushed down.

They are then rude and agressive to him (he got a chair thrown at him recently) when he tries to see to them, they boast of how nuch they drink and what they did to receive their injuries.

It is so commonplace, more so on Bank Holidays admittedly, that it makes dh want to jack it all in. He can work for 12 hours on people who don't give a toss about themselves or anyone else.

He doesn't actually believe that the answer is to throw more money at the NHS but to use what they have more wisely.

I'm sorry, not sure how relevant this is, just wanted you to know that the medical professionals can be as sick of the system as patients are.

Thank god, and the talents of the staff who have worked with, her she is now out of theater and is awake.

I have already posted that I realise the issue isn't a case of labour good/tory bad ( or the other way around)

I just find it hard to belive that in 2005 we have to leave a 79 year old woman over 48 hours before her hip can be pinned and plated. She has dementia and is totaly incapable of understanding her situation. She could not understand why she was in pain, and kept trying to walk, wrenching her leg further and causing her to cry for her mother. It would be comparable to say she was in the same state as one of our toddlers, in great pain and frightened because she could not understand why she was like that. No matter how often the staff tried to explain, and they did, often with great sympathy and patients.

Doctordh, I agree with you utterly. I had to watch my mother suffer for 48 hours for an operation that took in the end 1.5 hours. The poor staff will have to see that over and over again. Watching people suffer when they know they could be helped. What the hell must that do to people who enter a caring profession? It must be awful for them.

hmb, i'm so so sorry, genuinely. i would be distraught and agonised as you are....

whatever your politics, it is evident that something is not right if your mother can be disoriented and in pain for 2 days due to lack of resource.

HMB, glad she is out and I hope that you find the rehab process is all it can be for her. Don't be afraid to fight your corner if needs be.