Then he went out of the intensive care then and down onto the ward and we, like I said, we were waiting for a place to come up at [the second hospital]. And he was on the ward for a day and a half and I got there at 11 o'clock on the second day and I phoned my brother that night and I said, “You've got to get him. You've got to take me to [the second hospital] I don't want him there. He's not to stay there. Take me to [the second hospital] tomorrow. He's not staying on that ward. It's disgusting”.
So anyway he took the day off work to take me to [the second hospital] the next day but I went into [hospital name] onto the ward and as I got onto the wards, the registrar came up to me and said, “We've got some good news. [Your husband's] being transferred to [the second hospital] tomorrow”. Oh no it was that afternoon. So I said, “Oh that's good”. And then I followed the ambulance that he was in to [the second hospital]. And then I stayed in [the second hospital] for a week in the nurses' quarters there. They were a bit like a…
Was it a relatives' room?
No it was like, it was like hotel but it was just like nurses quarters but it was for relatives. You had to pay to stay there. Yeah.
So he was in the general ward of the first hospital for a couple of days?
Yes.
What was your main concern when he was there?
Well I just thought that he wasn't being looked after and after being so seriously ill and coming through so much, I used to go then. You never saw a nurse. They were just too busy. There was, they were just all student nurses on the ward. There was too many people. He was in a side ward again because he had this MRSA and there just wasn't enough people to look after. There wasn't enough qualified nurses to look after somebody who'd been so poorly. And I didn't think he was getting, it's not that I wanted him to have loads of attention again but I don't think he was getting looked after at all properly there.
Could he do anything for himself?
No, no.
And were you going there?
I was going there and helping to drink his tea. I shaved him. I washed him and then I'd go back at teatime, the same thing again. Make sure he had his tea and I'd sort the telly out for him. Suppose the nurses did go in and I think an occupational therapist had gone in there to see him. And [my husband] was still very muddled. He wasn't at all with it. He, you know, he was still. Up until days when he was in [the second hospital] he was still really. Obviously he had been sedated and heavily sedated for so long it, you know, they just weren't wearing off him. It must have took a week or two weeks to wear off him.
So then he was transferred to the other hospital?
To [the second hospital] then yeah.
So I knew he was safe. So I was sleeping better then. And because I knew he was safe and because I knew that I'd been to the hospital and it was, it was spotlessly clean and when you see so many nursing sisters floating round. And there were still student nurses there but they seemed, they weren't harassed. There was more nurses to less patients. There was, you know, probably about eight patients, ten patients on [my husband's] ward whereas in [the first hospital] there was about 30 odd patients to those four nursing staff that are up there. So that's why. It wasn't their fault that he wasn't getting the attention he needed but they need something in between. So that when people come out of the intensive care perhaps a ward that will hold ten people where there's senior nursing staff to look after them to let people think well he's being looked after properly. I know he's in safe hands. And that's how I felt when he was in [the second hospital]. I knew that he was safe there and they made you feel like he was alright, you know. |
