"Treatment at Kettering General Hospital"

My wife has a gallstone, this has been recently diagnosed.

Overnight my wife suffered from an inflamed gallbladder, with vomiting, chest pains and generally feeling unwell. NHS Direct said to get to A&E asap..

On arrival at Kettering General Hospital the examination was quick and my wife was admitted.

One of the doctors insisted on examining her rectal passage with his fingers. I don't know where this fits in with the gall bladder inflammation!

On arrival at the surgical assessment ward the staff seemed nice and caring, but it was a different story once transferred onto another ward.

There appears to be one nurse and several 'helpers' - the helpers run errands, man the nurses station and talk amongst themselves, while the nurse seemed just too busy to care properly.

There is a smell of urine and unwashed bodies about the ward, the washing facilities for patients seems to be a shower/toilet across a corridor. I don't know the ratio of washing facilities per patient, but it doesn't look very high.

My wife is on an IV drip - the saline is left to expire until the line fills with her own bloods - this has happened on 3 occasions in the past day.

Nobody will give a straight answer of how long until my wife is either given an operation to remove the gallstone or will be released.

The ward itself is clean enough on the surfaces likely to be touched, but the windows coverings (vertical blinds) are filthy and the floor corners are a different colour to bits of the floor that is dry mopped from time to time, and it doesn't look like much above waist height have had a wipe over in a while.

In my opinion, many things look shabby, chipped, worn. Looking out of the window, the buildings themselves appear to be poorly maintained with rot holes in soffits that allow pigeons into roof spaces, the grounds look like they have not been gardened and it all looks generally unloved.

The staff we were in contact with appear demotivated and in my opinion the doctors do not appear frequently enough. Many of the auxiliaries I saw seemed to avoid contact with the patients.

My wife is loathed to complain as she needs the gallbladder operation and is worried that complaining will prejudice her treatment.

This doesn't look like a place of care, and doesn't feel or smell like one either.