Day 31 - Saturday 28th May

The day we realised kp is not getting the right treatment
All credit to Marie who has been meticulously writing down events that have led us to the conclusion that Karen is not being well looked after at Ward 3.

I have already written about Mrs 26 Beds. Some of the things that Ward 3 have not been doing for Karen are as follows :-

• Moving her on 2 hourly intervals as instructed by the consultant.
• Cleaning up promptly after Karen has had a bowel movement.
• Responding to Karen's cries for attention
• Emptying kp's urine collection unit which overflows. (This has happened twice)
• Responding in a timely fashion to requests for help (from relatives). 40 minutes on one occasion.
• Providing a chair bed so we can get Karen sitting up (to help lungs and sores)
• Following barrier care procedures (Mrs 26 beds)
  

There are others but you get the idea.

The crunch of it (for me) was when she told Marie today "I am a burden to the staff here". Everything became clear. She is spot on. A patient should NOT feel they are a burden. That ISN'T going to aid recovery !!

We are trying to fix the issue by stepping in ourselves to help, which is the right thing to do in the short term, but we need her to receive adequate care from the staff, which she is not receiving.

I am not picking on the staff personally here. The staff care when she gets it is great, but there isn't enough of it. The exception to this is Mrs 26 beds who needs some lessons in "Customer Care". There is a right and a wrong way to tell someone that you will be there shortly. You don't tell them how insignificant they are. Karen is NOT insignificant.

Weeping Wounds
Marie spotted that one of Karen's wounds on her rear was weeping quite significantly. She called someone to have a look at it. They were shocked at what they saw and had to go and get someone else to look. That person was also shocked by what they saw and had never seen anything like it before. More confirmation that she is in the wrong place.

Visitors
Today was the first day Karen had had different visitors. It was great to see her interacting with normal people ;-) Today, her first visitor was Deborah (from work). Lots of smiles from kp. Deborah was great for kp as she could catch up on work gossip. She also really knows her nursing stuff. I learned quite a lot on how to move kp around and make things easier when turning her etc... Thanks Debs.

Then it was Karen's relatives, Lillian and Bernard who again lit the smile touchpaper.

Whilst Lilly and Bernard were there, we then had more problems finding available nurses for things that needed doing.

kp eating too little
Karen is not really eating enough in the families opinion. She can manage 1/4 or 1/2 platefuls at best. Today we may have seen the results of this. She was knackered pretty much all day.
We have tried to encourage kp to eat more, but you can't force the food down. We will address this tomorrow.

Other than that, it's been a quieter day. Thanks for all the texts and blog comments. They never fail to bring a smile to kp, whose first or second question in the mornings is, are there any blog comments ?

:-)

dp