Philippa agrees with me as far as attention
in hospitals and care homes is concerned – at least I think she does. She and I have had a considerable and
concentrated raft of experience in recent months and for her it’s not over yet. We both agree that you simply cannot fault
the staff because they are absolutely faultless. Remember how years ago in the bad old days when
hospitals still had Matrons and Staff Nurses how those wholesome caregivers
turned into fiends and monsters as they climbed the career ladder? - how over
time they terrified all in their path as they strode the hospital corridors? Well
it’s most definitely not that way these days because all and sundry – clients
and colleagues alike are treated with undiluted sweetness and love. It's as if the fundamental ideals of the
1960s have at long last crept into every corner of the health services.
Back in the bad old days when
patients were not yet described as they would be when visiting their
accountant, family members would certainly not dare to ask for something out of
the ordinary on their behalf (water rather than orange juice, butter rather
than olive oil spread) for fear of withering glances followed by a firm
No! All that has changed and today you
can make any request imaginable and it will largely be agreed with. Not a crushing glance in sight because
everyone positively beams goodwill. Even
the timbre of the voices has changed and the tones of assent are reassuringly low
and non-threatening. A great deal of the
time the speech is so soft that it’s quite hard to understand what in fact is
actually being communicated but at least you can be sure that it is definitely
not hostile. Clearly entire staff bases have
undergone more than one training course entitled Be Good & Be Kind or
Spread Love Not War.
The result of this is that becoming a
patient is an immediately pleasant experience in the 2020s though all this sweetness
and accord comes at a price. I might be
more anxious and frankly neurotic than most of course but it seems to me that one
of the more worrying side effects is that it is easier than it once was to become
seriously malnourished and at worst simply slip away via hunger if you should
be unfortunate enough to remain in a modern hospital ward for more than a week
or two. Nothing wrong with the food because
these days you actually get a menu and there are a range of tempting
choices. The problem seems to be that it
is often placed just out of the reach of the recipient who is destined to
simply remain tantalised by the wafting aroma.
Thirty minutes later it is whisked away by a smiling aide. Philippa suggests that if this really is
the case throughout the system and she’s by no means convinced because she doesn’t
jump to conclusions quite as readily as I do, then the trick is to arrange for
a family member to visit at meal times.
Someone who can do the job of those 1950s and 1960s nurses and ensure
that bowls of soup actually reach their intended target. Well who can argue with that? It
was disquieting recently to observe that an elderly man no longer able to
swallow his Morphine pills was given ham sandwiches for lunch regardless. After several complaints and days later
nourishing looking soups began to arrive ….. and the only problem that remained
was that the plastic lids were almost impossible for the hale and hearty to
remove. The seriously ailing had no
chance at all!
Very disturbing to note that often
those on a regime of intense pain relief like Morphine, which is likely to
increase thirst, have mounting difficulty accessing drinks as they become
weaker. Even water poses problems as
time after time requests are either not actioned by the smiling helpers or,
equally frustratingly, when they do arrive they are once again placed just
beyond the sick person’s reach. More
alarming perhaps are the jugs – far too large and unwieldy particularly for the
terminally ill to manage. A family
member needs to be on hand most of the time in such cases.
Most concerning of all as far as I
could see were the number of requests both the trivial and the critical that were
simply ignored and toppled off the radar.
It would of course be far easier to tackle this problem if people did
not smile quite so much and nod assent quite so readily, an alarming degree of
passive resistance. Even when the
specialist himself recommended that the tardy Morphine swallower should now
receive pain relief via injection it seemed extraordinarily difficult to get
this directive actioned by the cheery and genial assistant staff.
Call me old fashioned but I cannot
help thinking that life for both patients and their extended families was a
great deal easier and more straightforward in the bad old days of the wicked Ward
Sister’s Reign of Terror.
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