"Concerns about staff care during day surgery"

My daughter was booked in to have day surgery at the royal gwent hospital newport this week. When we got there we were shown to a ward that had been changed into a waiting room (well the beds taken out and a few chairs put in ) to find patients sitting there in their gowns and stockings waiting to go for surgery. Most had been there for several hours without any information on when they would be called in.

The hours we were there waiting for my daughter to have her op one gentleman decided to go home as he had been waiting nearly six hours and staff couldn't tell him when he would be going down.

Another patient in a wheel chair had come in 7 o'clock that morning to have his leg amputated, which I'm sure you would agree is not a small operation, to find he was left in the waiting room not knowing if they would be able to do it that day but had no bed for him to go to. I witnessed this gentleman's legs weeping on to the floor, which was cleaned up after an hour of telling staff. These staff decided the best idea wasn't to get someone to redress the gentleman's legs, but to leave a towel on the floor for him to park his wheelchair over so his leg could drip onto that. I was totally disgusted by this! This poor man didn't deserve to be treated like this. They found him a bed at 2 but still didn't take him to it until 5 after explaining his op would be the next day. How anyone could find it acceptable to leave someone for 3 hours after finding him a bed sitting in a wheelchair with infection weeping through his legs and dripping onto the floor leaves me speechless.

Thankfully the porter who took my daughter down was lovely and the night staff where helpfully. But once the day staff took over the care was gone and we were left with the same uncaring staff we had witnessed the day before.

Nursing staff have always been known as caring staff but after spending a day witnessing them this week there is no care on this ward B6. These staff were only there because their ward in D block was being deep cleaned due to infection and after seeing how they treated people does not surprise me.

Having an operation is a big thing to the patient. A smile, a goodmorning from a nurse goes a long way, something the staff should be taught. I know they are busy but a smile doesn't take much to seconds. To pop into the ward to make sure everyones ok doesn't take much time. A cleaner checking for spills again doesn't take a lot of times.