Not happy about granny's care

venusdoom

Well my 83yr old gran's been in a community hospital for a while and during this period my mother has not been too happy with the nurses but never went any further than telling the family. But two days ago, she fell, banged her head, doc was up etc and turns out she has big lump on her head and various bruises etc.Last night when my mother went to visit she was in a chair beside her bed and my mother subsequently found out she couldn't move and was in a lot of distress when she tried to put her into bed, yet the nurses never noticed this all day and left her in the chair!! Like a little frail lady falls day before and doesn't walk around the next day but they never questioned why? Nurses were called anyway and we were told she would have to go for an x-ray this morning. So today, I went up to see how she was and went to ask if the x-ray had been done and I was shocked at the nurses response towards me. She basically was patronising and giving out about where I got this idea that my gran would be sent for xray as it's the doctors who make this decision not them. She did not tell me in a nice manner though but had her voice some what raised and was rude and patronising. I found this completely unprofessional and left rather upset that I got that response from asking a question. My mother told me before she was afraid to ask the nurses questions or even voice concerns because of this response but now I've seen it myself, I'm really unhappy. I'm considering complaining but I don't know if this has grounds for complaint or anything. Thanks for reading.

Daisy M

Thats shocking but sadly not uncommon. The nurses are overworked there is no doubt about that but there is no excusing that behaviour. Request a meeting with the director of nursing. Voice all your concerns through her. Arrange for one person to be the contact with the family and that they be informed of all procedures, changes in health, medication ect.

On a practical level try and organise some kind of rota for visiting so that there is someone with your gran as much as possible. If she struggles to feed herself try and make sure that there is someone there as much as possible at mealtimes. When my gran was in hospital the practice was that they gave out all the meals then a nurse would come and fed people who couldnt manage it themselves. There could be a number of patients needing help eatingso meals could have been left sitting up to 20 mins and gone cold. Not the nurses fault as they only have 2 hands but fustrating none the less.

LegacyUser

I feel your pain. Sadly, my nana is in a similar situation. It's a community home and I don't see the carers/nurses being over worked there, yet I often have to highlight my nan's obvious needs/wants, simply from just turning her in the bed, to closing her window when it's clearly cold and putting on her cardigan. They are all little things, but so distressing for us relations to see it undone. To me, it seems they just do what they have to do. I feel disliked by them from highlighting what my nan needs. I wish I didn't have to.