So how has the ward system changed since I was a child? As a 5 year old in the 70's I was admitted to have my tonsils removed, a pristine ward, no parents during the day and the children stayed in their beds, we just chatted amongst ourselves. The nurses were scary, but at night a nurse sat at a desk on the ward to watch over us, holding us when we were sick and getting drinks. It was very different to now, but we never felt abandoned, it was just expected.
Fast forward to now, and my experience of the NHS, one thing that has changed significantly is the amount of staff, it is minimal. No doctors on the ward, except a student doctor waiting in the wings during office hours, is this what I pay for? As for the food, well, it was cold and greasy, and certainly not appetising. When you are in that environment to be tempted to eat surely has to be a priority, instead it did not represent the description. Each evening food ordering for the next day took place, so if you have just had an operation then you have no appetite, but 24 hours later are a little hungrier. They were willing to supply sandwiches if you were very hungry, but they were short on filling and the bread was dry.
I spent two days in a high dependency room opposite the nurses station, but you are moved on quickly, so I was transfered to another part of the ward, opposite an eldery lady with Alzheimers, who was constantly on the move, rumaging through peoples belongings, talking, crying and begging to go home. Surprising sprightly she had a few moments of total normality and it was hard not to feel sorry for her, but, when you have been told you have cancer and are recovering from a major op, it is almost unbearable from a coping point of view. It also meant that the staff just constantly guided her back to bed and gave her a picture to colour, but she didn't understand. A doctor arrived to see her and she started to cry and told him to leave her alone, the doctor shouted at her and told her she couldn't talk to him like that but to just get on with it on her own. I was absolutely shocked by the inhumanity of it, and it made me fearful of the future for us all as we get older. That night a nurse arrived, paid for by the tax payer to sit there all night to prevent her from escaping, but the constant crying and arguing left me with no option but to ask to be moved I wasn't strong enough mentally or physically to cope.
It was unfortunate, for want of a better word, that the staff left us waiting for hours when medication was due, to the point where one of the ladies waited threehours past the due time for pain relief, she ended up calling a friend to come to the hospital to go to the nurses station to get help, ridiculous.
So I was shifted to the part of the ward where nobody goes, with four beds, two were occupied by two very nice elderly ladies. Unfortunately ringing for help was wasted, at one point we all had pressed our buzzers, nurse turns up tells us she will be back in a moment, never to be seen again, bearing in mind that we are all post surgery and unable to do very much. However at that point I didn't know this was Stacey's party trick.
It can be quite demeaning waiting for someone to come and bathe you, especially for me, an independent, working woman, who is just used to doing things herself, so when the poor lady in one of the other beds is helped into a chair with a bowl of water I wondered how I would cope when I get older, hopefully I won't be left as she was, with no clothes for an hour, freezing cold and unable to move, because Stacey 'forgot'.
Can the NHS survive? Well NHS or private it seems there is little to choose when you need an operation of any scale accompanied by after care, the adage you get what you pay for isn't true, I've paid a lot in my lifetime to date and never needed the NHS to come to my aid until now, what did I get for my contribution to our society? The treatment I wouldn't wish on anyone. The ward needs someone in charge, who is not a friend or confidante or gossip, but is medically trained, to make a decision when needed. The whole system needs money, lots of it, running a hospital with it's own budget was a stupid idea, because it encourages corner cutting, do we really want our lives gambled with?
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