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The end of my father in law's life

Posted By stormbringer

"The end of my father in law's life"

About: Castle Hill Hospital / General surgery

(as a relative),

My father in law was admitted to castle hill hospital. He was terminally ill and had not long to live. He was admitted to a busy surgical ward that seemed to have no idea how to treat him correctly. The staff appeared indifferent to his needs and the specialist nurse did not always return calls. It seemed to me that the criteria for dying with dignity only applied if a person was experiencing acute pain. Only his partner was alerted to the fact that he had taken a turn for the worse, and he died alone shoved away in a side room.

This hospital had only weeks before opened a purpose built multi million pound oncology unit and yet this gentle, proud, and dignified man's needs were not met. I have nursed for almost 30 years myself and the day I lose compassion for my patients will be the day I quit nursing. I feel there is no excuse for such apparently shambolic treatment and despite shouting hard and long still nothing was done to ease his passing.

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Responses

Response from Engagement Section Assistant, NHS Hull 14 years ago
NHS Hull

Submitted on 20/05/2009 at 14:50
Published on Care Opinion at 01:00

Dear Stormbringer First and foremost we would like to offer our condolences on the loss of your father-in-law and to apologise most sincerely for the distress caused to you and the rest of your family. Our colleagues at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust would very much like to hear from you so that they can not only apologise to you and your family for what happened, but also to learn from what has gone wrong to ensure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. They have asked if you would consider telephoning their Patient Advice & Liaison Service to talk about this. They can be contacted on 01482 623065 or alternatively by email. Our organisation is NHS Hull and we are responsible for deciding how money is spent on local health services [also known as commissioning], ensuring those services are of high quality and meet local needs. This obviously fell short in your family’s experience and we have ensured that our contract monitoring team are aware of the concerns you have raised. We value all feedback and if you would like to discuss this further please do not hesitate to contact our Patient Advice & Liaison Service on 01482 335409 or by email. Thank you once again for taking the time to tell us about your family’s experience and once again we would like to offer our sincere condolences.
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