Other Stuff > Misc / Open
Old age and the current state of local NHS emergency waits.
Rozabikes Tim:
Crikey Ted, thats all you need. Hope you are sorted soon and back with Wendy. Shout if you need anything.
I'm a massive fan of the NHS but recent experiences like yours make me despair.
Can relate a few but my father in law had been in hospital a couple of weeks until suddenly discharged on Tuesday this week. Despite numerous requests to fully reinstate his care package, he did have carers yesterday but no nurse visit to administer his insulin. Should have been one am and another pm. Zilch! Basic duty of care stuff...
neat street:
Sad news Ted, unffortunatly this is country wide, wishing you get the treatment you need soon, well don for following up though on your breathing, who nkows what could have happend if you did not take that step. best wishes
flatfour:
Ted, on Wednesday of this week I was called at around 8 p.m. by the Shift Supervisor at the nearby Care Home that Mother has moved into. The Supervisor said that mother had a raised temperature, vomiting and diarrhea and had briefly passed out - she had eaten a shellfish sandwich a few hours earlier that I had collected from a local supermarket and taken in to her, for a change from the usually supplied food at the Home.
An ambulance was called, with a response time of "up to four hours". As nothing had happened nearly four hours later, the Supervisor called back to be told that they were "under pressure" however the call out would be escalated to one level below a Blue Light Run. The new response time was "up to eight hours from now"!
The ambulance finally arrived at 3:25 a.m. and the crew decided that mother did not need hospital, as she was showing signs of recovery form a presumed episode of food poisoning. The crew remarked that it was probably fortunate, as they had been waiting for the past six hours to hand a patient over at A&E.
And it's not even winter yet, when things usually get worse.
As an aside, this same week my daughter became ill whilst on holiday in Malta, coincidentally with suspected food poisoning. She tells me that an emergency clinician was immediately dispatched to her hotel (from the local Pharmacy, apparently where they are medically trained) and administered some medication. She was able to fly home to Brussels the next day. No charge was made for this service, except for the cost of the prescription.
Rozabikes Tim:
Really don't want to be NHS bashing. I have had absolutely superb service on a number of occasions but something seriously lacking all too regularly...
I had a fall in France knocking myself out, nice cut, loads of blood etc. Our cottage is in a small hamlet about 5 k from our local village. Within 15 minutes of raising the alarm 5 people were in attendance. Then took me to hospital about 20mins away. Straight away assessed and MRI done. Then onto a nice ward for 3 days of assessment for any bleeds internally.
The French have a great system where the "Pompiers" include both firemen, ambulance staff and paramedics operating as one unit.
Unfortunately not my only experience of the French health service and again there, excellent.
People bang on about an overloaded inefficient service here, which there is surely some truth in but I think we should all be prepared to pay a bit more as well whatever. Like alot of other critical areas in our society, some non partisan agreement with long term goals from all political parties. When you need it you need it.
Spitfire:
Hi Ted this all sounds appalling, I hope things are improving for you.
I am British and proud of it and our history, when working abroad in the 1990's I used to get really annoyed at my European colleagues refering to the UK as a backward little island off the coast of Europe.
However sadly I am tending to the same opinion as the UK slowly slides into being a third world country.
Dennis
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