"Recent hospital care has not been good"

A few months ago I broke my wrist and was treated by doctors and physiotherapists at the fracture clinic – the treatment was second to none.

However, more recently, other care has not been good.

Two things happened, I think on the same day: I injured my elbow on a garden cane and later that day I was arrested. The arrest brought on a panic attack and the police took me to the hospital where pains in my chest were monitored using sticky pads. I asked them to check my elbow but they didn’t.

I didn’t have any of my medication with me, I take tablets for a heart condition, my kidneys and for epilepsy. The police went round to my house but came back with out of date tablets so I did not have any medication. After my panic attack had been dealt with I was detained in custody overnight in a dirty cell where I had a seizure. I’m sure the injured elbow became infected there.

For a month after that I went into A&E several times to have my arm / elbow looked at, I was given antibiotics.

I was also having blood tests done by my GP – one test showed that my kidneys had failed (acute renal failure) and so I was taken into hospital. This was on a Wednesday, on Friday when my husband came to visit I was still in the street clothes I was wearing when I was admitted even though he had brought everything for me earlier. He asked the nurses who had dressed me that day, I could not do this myself as I was hooked up to a drip, and no one said anything because no one had dressed me. I had not been given a wash, had my hair brushed or anything.

A kidney doctor who was there asked to see my input and output charts when he noticed there was no water at my bed, there were no charts. I was being pumped up with fluids but no-one was checking output.

My husband decided he was taking me home rather than keep me at the hospital where he felt I had been neglected for my entire stay.

Since then I have not been back to the hospital but have been treated by my own doctor.