{"id":286410,"date":"2022-02-09T04:58:29","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T04:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/the-troubling-stories-that-make-you-wonder\/"},"modified":"2022-02-09T04:58:29","modified_gmt":"2022-02-09T04:58:29","slug":"the-troubling-stories-that-make-you-wonder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/the-troubling-stories-that-make-you-wonder\/","title":{"rendered":"The troubling stories that make you wonder"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I first investigated the NHS<\/a> nearly 20 years ago, never did I imagine I would still be highlighting the same problems today.<\/p>\n

Why should I? It was 2003. Tony Blair<\/a> was pouring money into the NHS \u2014 pledging \u00a3100 billion a year since 2000. He promised a new health service; well-funded, efficient, target-driven and more productive in every way.<\/p>\n

Yet while waiting lists dropped, in general the NHS took taxpayers\u2019 money, hired more managers and went on doing things its own sweet way. And despite the splurge, productivity in the NHS actually fell, as official figures revealed in 2004.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2012, and the influential King\u2019s Fund think tank praised the then-health secretary Jeremy Hunt for increasing patient safety and care.<\/p>\n

Problems with basic patient care were in the past, I thought \u2014 a view cemented when I witnessed the outpouring of gratitude as we clapped for the NHS on our doorsteps during lockdown.<\/p>\n

\"When \"When <\/p>\n

When I first investigated the NHS nearly 20 years ago, never did I imagine I would still be highlighting the same problems today [File photo]<\/p>\n

Proof, I reasoned, that things had changed for the better.<\/p>\n

Then, last month, the issues all became very real again in a most personal way. My 97-year-old father was rushed into hospital with septicaemia, caught Covid during the seven-hour wait in AE and was then put into isolation.<\/p>\n

It quickly became chillingly clear that despite all the reforms, money and promises, basic care on some NHS wards is once again poor and even dangerous.<\/p>\n

My father complained of being hungry. Neglectful nursing meant he developed bedsores. Finally, his discharge was messed up and he was left lying in a freezing ambulance for an hour and a half, convinced he was going to die.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, he has now recovered. But he refuses to ever return to hospital. Nor was his experience a one off. After I wrote about his horrifying experience, readers inundated the Daily Mail with stories of their own elderly and vulnerable relatives\u2019 ordeals in hospital over the course of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

And, depressingly, the issues they raised were identical to \u2014 if not worse than \u2014 those I highlighted all those years ago.<\/p>\n

\"It\u00bfs \"It\u00bfs <\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to acknowledge that there are very many dedicated NHS nurses who do truly care \u2014 unfortunately there are too many who don\u2019t<\/p>\n

Hospital is supposed to make you better. But those readers described how, even in this, it is failing our older relatives.<\/p>\n

Take Mervyn Rosenberg, a retired surgeon and father of six from North Wales.<\/p>\n

At the height of the pandemic, in May 2020, Mervyn, who had mobility problems due to Parkinson\u2019s, suffered a fall. His wife and son called an ambulance. When the paramedics checked him, they found that Mervyn, 86, had a slight fever \u2014 and they insisted on taking him to hospital.<\/p>\n

As his daughter Beth Vaughan, 50, a senior auditor, says: \u2018It\u2019s a decision we will think about forever. We are convinced if he had not gone that night, he might still be with us.\u2019<\/p>\n

Mervyn was admitted into Wrexham Maelor Hospital, where he had worked for 30 years. Five days later, the man who had arrived with a slight fever was dead, following a fall in the night.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Henry Allthrop who, before he went to hospital was, according to his son Mark, \u2018hale and hearty\u2019 and very much looking forward to turning 90.<\/p>\n

\u2018Next stop 100,\u2019 he liked to say. Henry Allthrop is not his real name \u2014 like many who wrote in, the family begged anonymity, terrified of being at the mercy of vindictive staff on their next admission if they complain \u2014 itself a distressing reflection on our health service.<\/p>\n

Last month, Henry\u2019s GP recommended a hospital stay of two or three days for a heart problem.<\/p>\n

\u2018He walks into hospital unaided,\u2019 Mark says, \u2018fully in control of both bowel and bladder. Three weeks later he is wheeled into our house, in a diaper, doubly incontinent.\u2019<\/p>\n

His father\u2019s decline was not caused by illness, insists Mark, but \u2018neglect on the ward\u2019.<\/p>\n

Another person affected is Jeanette Parsons, 88, a retired social worker hospitalised in November 2020 with a kidney infection. Her daughter Emma Parsons-Reid, 54, says of her mother\u2019s experience: \u2018Although she recovered physically quite quickly, she\u2019s definitely suffering from PTSD, even now.\u2019<\/p>\n

Emma recalls how her mother begged \u2018just get me out of here\u2019 \u2014 the exact words uttered by my father due to appalling care from unkind nurses.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to acknowledge that there are very many dedicated NHS nurses who do truly care \u2014 unfortunately there are too many who don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u2018I believe there\u2019s a real lack of discipline with nurses right now,\u2019 says Emma. \u2018They\u2019re using Covid as an excuse. It suits them very well to have no visitors to the wards because that means they\u2019re not accountable to families.\u2019<\/p>\n

And it seems hospitals are turning into a free-for-all where the elderly, confused and meek \u2014 unable to advocate for themselves \u2014 are the ones to suffer.<\/p>\n

Henry Allthrop\u2019s son Mark was perplexed when his father was fitted with a catheter, as he had no bladder issues before admission.<\/p>\n

The result was predictable. People with catheters are vulnerable to infections and Henry duly developed a urinary tract infection. This often manifests in the elderly as delirium, a fact that eluded NHS staff on the geriatric ward until Mark pointed it out. Only then did they start antibiotics.<\/p>\n

But the damage was already done. In a delirious state, Mark\u2019s father launched himself off his bed and hit his head.<\/p>\n

Given a brain scan, he was pronounced fine.<\/p>\n

Yet just 24 hours later Mark received a distraught call from his mother, now at his father\u2019s bedside; he was expected to die.<\/p>\n

During this time, cracked ribs had caused blood to pool in Henry\u2019s chest. \u2018It transpires that the hospital didn\u2019t bother to check for injuries to his body from the fall,\u2019 Mark says. Thanks entirely to the NHS, he was now virtually bleeding to death. He recovered but is a shadow of himself.<\/p>\n

Sadly, in Mervyn Rosenberg\u2019s case, similar neglect had irreversible consequences. Four days after being admitted, Mervyn also fell in the night and suffered a brain injury. It\u2019s not known how long he lay on the floor until another patient found him.<\/p>\n

His daughter, Beth, says it was at this point that her mother and brother were finally allowed in \u2014 to sit with him until he died.<\/p>\n

\u2018As a former nurse herself, Mum was horrified by what she found,\u2019 she says. \u2018He was dirty, his dressing had not been changed. No one seemed to have taken him to the lavatory or helped him wash.\u2019 Mervyn died 22 hours after the fall.<\/p>\n

His family are clear where the blame lies: \u2018We believe he died from a total lack of nursing care.\u2019<\/p>\n

And Beth has no truck with the excuse of staff shortages, or an NHS overwhelmed by Covid.<\/p>\n

\u2018When Mum arrived that night she said there were plenty of nurses on the ward,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

\u2018But everyone was standing around the nurse\u2019s station. Yet they believe they are all angels.\u2019<\/p>\n

Can one blame her for her anger? Those \u2018angels\u2019 had deprived her of a beloved father.<\/p>\n

The hospital has since admitted full liability and apologised to Mervyn\u2019s family.<\/p>\n

So why is nursing care such a lottery? Older sisters and matrons I spoke to for my original investigation laid the blame on the changes in nurse training. Nurses now learnt more about sociology than bed pans, they complained.<\/p>\n