Old Folk in Hospital

The boss has been in hospital now for 4 weeks. He walked in for a brain op. He's 84. He was a week lying in a bed waiting for the op. He has been another 3 weeks lying in bed post op, being moved from one hospital to another and he had been in 7 different wards, and sometimes just parked on a corridor in his bed. He doesn't know what the plan is now. We don't know what the plan is, nobody you ask seems to know either though sometimes the word physiotherapy is mentioned but rarely occurs. There is also mention of radiotherapy but now of course it's the holidays and the meeting "will be sometime next week". So that's another week lying about, waiting, getting weaker through inactivity, more mentally broken down through disorientation and also sheer boredom and frustration. We really can't see why he wouldn't be better off at home where we can provide reasonable care, give him more exercise, get him back in his old routine, surrounded by the things that interest him and give him a reason to live and maybe even a bit of pleasure for without pleasure why bother to live? So hopefully he is coming home. Better than lying in that place for weeks vegetating.

There is some good work done in hospitals, in particular the op, and I've nothing but respect for that, but is leaving old folk in bed, in limbo, really the best way of keeping them healthy? I don't think so. It must be costing a fortune and tying up beds that could used for more urgent cases as well. The problem is that decisions in the NHS seem to take forever and all the while folk are parked up getting weaker, waiting and waiting. Now I know why they call them patients. From what I've seen the NHS is paralysed by slow and haphazard decision making which leads to a backlog and queues of their own creation and much wasted time and resource.

I am sincerely grateful for the treatment, without which he wouldn’t be alive today. My concern is the level of physical and mental inactivity before and after the treatment which has wasted his muscles away and worsened his mental state. They won’t let us walk him for health and safety reasons because we aren’t trained members of staff. They obviously don’t have enough staff to walk many of the patients so they end up spending 95% of their time in bed with all the attendant problems that brings.

I can’t change the system. It is as it is. But the big lesson for me is that the inactivity associated with a stay in hospital can accelerate the decline that comes with old age. Don’t quite know how you get round it but keeping the old folk out of hosipital and as involved and active as possible with the family must help.

Useful information and reassurance as always. After a frank discussion with the management who had apparently been planning to send him to a care home 50 miles away we are bringing him home subject to their approval of the steps we are taking back home to accommodate his needs.

I am grateful for the care the hospital staff have shown within the constraints that they work. It was just that being stuck in limbo for weeks on end with no clue as to what was intended was very frustrating for all of us.

It's resolved now and we have learned we need to be a bit more proactive. I'll leave it there.

Thanks.