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"Concerns about my uncle's care in critical care"

About: Royal Stoke University Hospital / General medicine

(as a relative),

My uncle has been in critical care for about a month now after his bowl ruptured and he had to have an ileostomy. He was ventilated after surgery and the staff had trouble waking him up off the ventilator so a tracheotomy was done.

He was woken up and doing well until he stared having episodes of uncontrollable fast breathing causing his heart rate and other things to race up. this keeps resulting in the staff sedating him again. The staff are puzzled to what is causing this after doing many tests and x rays and finding nothing. However when he is awake he keeps telling us it happens, then the staff do the suctioning procedure. It put him in awful pain and the staff are very rough despite being told to be gentle.

He has also worn a red band around his wrist warning that he is allergic to penicillin since he was admitted. However we have been informed today that he is 'not in fact allergic to penicillin as he has been on it for 5 days with no reaction' but he has had diarrhea and breathing difficulties, which I am now thinking could be due to the penicillin he has been given.

I don't know whether it's because the staff on critical care are used to dealing with sedated patients but it seems like they aren't listening to him or us and are really rough when turning him an doing suction.

He was also given a speaking valve not long after he was woken up but after being sedated the first time the valve has not been given back to him. It seems they are sedating him the first chance they get. I feel that they don't give him chance to calm these episodes himself first. As he has calmed himself down before and they have sedated him anyway. I am worried he is not been cared for properly.

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Responses

Response from University Hospitals of North Midlands 7 years ago
Submitted on 20/06/2016 at 16:47
Published on Care Opinion at 17:21


Dear 'unclescare'

Thank you for taking the time to provide us with feedback about your experience of University Hospitals of North Midlands.

Please contact our PALS Team (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) so that they can investigate the issues that you have raised further. The PALS Team can be contacted on 01782 676450 or 01782 676455 or by emailing patient.advice@uhns.nhs.uk.

Thank you and best wishes

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