I've just realised I've accidentally misled my fellow TDKers - Mum has gone into hospital today, but isn't actually having her surgery until Monday. She's on Warfarin (don't know if this has the same name abroad, but it's a blood thinning drug which Mum's on following a blood clot on her lung 2 years ago) - and they have to wean her off it, and monitor her clotting levels before any surgery can go ahead. They then have to put her back on Warfarin, and stabilise her again before she can be sent home.
So - she's in. Now, I don't know if many of you are familiar with our NHS - National Health Service - suffice to say it's a bit of a mess. It's understaffed, overmanaged and underfunded - not a very healthy combination. I'm already midst a complaint with the local NHS Trust regarding my Mum's care, treatment and subsequent discharge from her long stay earlier this year, so my expectations of the NHS are understandably not very high. However, even I am staggered by the speed at which things seem to have started going wrong this time around.
I left Mum at the hospital just after 1 - we'd got to the ward at 11, and had been in Mum's room, going through the admissions paperwork with the various nursing staff since 11.30. I phoned her at 6.30 this evening. She was STILL waiting for a jug of water and a glass. Not only that, but she was being left to sort out her own medication. This is a woman who hasn't self medicated at home for nearly a year - several of her tablets have changed in that time, and she's not overly familiar with some of the brands. I sort all of her tablets out for her into daily medidose packs, and the social services carers actually give her the medication. I hadn't taken the medidose packs into the hospital, as they specifically requested tablets should be taken in in their original packaging.
So - I rang the ward direct. Would you believe they've been having issues with the hospital kitchens all day, and have about 20 patients without water jugs? And that it was only then that they asked me if Mum self medicated at home? I would have told them she didn't straight off earlier if I'd thought they'd leave her to it, but seeing as that's not normally how things are done in hospitals over here, hadn't given it a second thought.
This has turned into a rant, and I never meant it to, but I'm just so frustrated that what should be BASICS aren't happening. Last time Mum was in hospital, they screwed up her psychiatric medication so badly she had the worst bi-polar breakdown she's had in years. And these people don't have to pick up the pieces, oh no, that's down to me. I could scream.
