"Hoping things are better than my experience from 1993"

My story isn't recent but I don't think a great deal has changed since my experience.

My mother was admitted to the Queen's Medical Hospital in Nottingham in 1993 with suspected lung cancer. During her stay, I often arrived just after lunchtime to find her pills had been left on the table out of her reach or sometimes I found them on the floor where she'd obviously knocked them off when reaching for something else. She had been getting increasingly forgetful before she went into hospital but she had no idea where she was most of the time and I'd find her in someone els's nightgown ot dressing gown with no knowledge of what had happened to her own.

One day when I arrived she was sitting shivering in a soaking wet nightie and I heard two nurses saying she'd wet herself on purpose and they weren't going to hurry to get her clean and dry again.

Unfortunately, my husband was suffering from lung cancer at the time and I didn't feel strong enough to complain about her treatment and anyway, I thought they might treat her even worse if I complained. It was made even worse by the fact that my sister-in-law's mother was being treated in the next ward and she was receiving excellent care.

My mother died after two weeks in the hospital and we never really got a clear idea of what it was that she was suffering from.

When I listen to other people talking about the poor treatment their relatives are receiving these days I look back to that time and think "nothing new there, then".