"My 88 year old mother, fell and ..."

What I liked

My 88 year old mother, fell and broke her hip last February. She was operated on the next day and a dynamic hip screw was inserted and the operation was entirely successful and she did not get any long term infections.

There were some very good nurses

What could be improved

Some of the agency support staff were just terrible. I had to tell one how to put a bedpan under my mother. Another one deliberately walked very very very slowly to any of her tasks, no matter how urgent the call was.

Anything else?

I have 2 major complaints and a minor one.

My mother has vascular dementia so is not able to reason or speak up for herself.

First complaint - There was another lady in her bay who had advanced dementia who shouted loudly for up to 18 hrs a day. She made it impossible to talk in the room and raised the stress levels of the other 5 patients int he bay and all the visitors. No doubt the staff too. She should have been moved away from other people or moved to a nursing home which could cope with her. Most of the time, no-one helped her or tried to calm her. It was so bad that I took my mother out of the hospital as soon as I could to give her some peace. NOT ACCEPTABLE

My second complaint - Due to her mental limitations, my mother cannot think through to consequences. On the morning drug round, she would be asked if she wanted pain killers. Sitting comfortable in bed she said no and it was left at that. A little later, the physios would arrive and haul her out and onto her feet at which point she was in extreme pain on her newly operated on hip. I asked them to persuade her to have the pain killers but I was told that would be abuse! I would say that it was extreme abuse to do what they did! This is just so stupid and amounts to a lack of care. In the end, I typed a request for them to explain to her why she needed them and stapled it to her drug chart herself. I still have no idea whether anyone did.

The minor complaint is that at one point, the nurses were telling me that she had a urinary infection but on talking to a doctor, I discovered that there was no urinary infection but she had had a post operative chest infection. There were no consequences to this as she had the correct drugs to clear her chest but it could have been serious.

I did not know of this site which is why it has taken me so long to report these problems. When you are in the situation we were in, it is all made so much worse by these needless stresses. My mother was in ward 5.