"treatment of older people"

My husband was admitted to Walsall Manor hospital in November. He was given a bed in ward 11 with a lot of other patients in the same age range. Whilst my hisband is 72, he is still very alert and can easily do a day's work without any trouble. He reads a lot and can have a decent converstaion with anybody. Unfortunately, the staff in ward 11 tarred him with the same brush as they did with all the other patients in the ward. They assumed he was confused and suffered with dementia and treated him by ignoring him. They prescribed tremedor medication which was too high a dose and made him confused and halucinating. He didn't recognise my daughter and his grandson which upset our grandson and he sat there crying. He wasn't eating and he was quite obviously distressed. My daughter picked up his notes and the nurses had recorded that he was alert and eating well. He didn't have anything to eat for 3 days and he was obviously confused. My daughter went the nurses staion and as they were talking, she waited to be asked to be helped, which is what one would expect. After a few minuted of being totally ignored, she said 'excuse me, what have you done to my Dad?' One of the nurses looked up and she asked who her Dad was. She told them and then demanded to see a doctor. They didn't tell us what was wrong. They did tests, but never said what they found. A day later they discharged him and said that the doctor would write to him. We never ever had that letter and had to speak to our GP only to find out that they had found a growth on his Kidney and this might be cancerous. We had an appointment for an MRI scan and long after the MRI scan, we eventully got to see the consultant. The consultant showed us the picture of the growth and said that they more than likely would take a biopsy. Again we waited, and in January, they sent for him again to see the conslutant who said that they could not do the biopsy because of where it was. There was not much else they could do and so we could either wait and they could monitor this growth or have it removed. We opted for having it removed and was told that they dso not do this at the Manor and he would have to be referred to Queen Elizabeth. We asked if New Cross could do the op and was told yes. WEe told the consultant that this would be a better idea and he said to leave it with him. He then said he just wanted to do a few more blood tests and would write to my husband with the results because he would discharge him there and then. We left and are still waiting for the results of the blood tests and to make matters worse, we had another appointment come through for the consultant and when my husband called the Manor, he was told to ignore this because it was a mistake. In the meantime we are still wondering about when we will hear from another hospital or getting the results from the consultant. In the meantime we read in the media that elderly patients with cancer are sent home to just get on with it. Is this it then?