A report published this week revealed that thousands of patients dying in hospital are not getting the care they deserve because of poor communication between medical staff.
Just four weeks ago my family witnessed our grandmother die in hospital and the whole episode as you can imagine was highly heartbreaking.
Gloomy
Angelina Santangelo had spent over one month dying in a ward with other elderly women, too weak to stay awake at times.
Each visit to my grandmother’s ward was becoming more and more gloomy. There was one co-patient in particular with Alzheimer’s we believe, who constantly repeated demands like:
“Will someone please tell me when me when the bus gets here, my husband will be worrying about me,” and “Oh my legs, will you give me some of those tablets I had last night, they really helped me, please nurse, I had a good night’s sleep last night” and her laments would go on and on.
Whatsa matter you, ah shuddup you face
At one point, when my spirited grandmother was first admitted, exacerbated she yelled: “shut-up” to which her talkative co-patient replied: “who said that? I’ll sue you!”
My family’s concerns deepened when our Angelina took a turn for the worse and she was back on the old oxygen mask to help her breathe.
Who knows?
My mother asked the senior doctor in charge of her mother if she would get better or worse. And his reply consisted of the following remark: “If I were to cross the road and get hit by a bus would I make it through? We do not know.”
Let me stay at home!
So, to an already distressed daughter this only made my mother feel worse which is perhaps why one of the report’s outcomes, titled Caring to the End? - about 60 percent of deaths in England occur in hospital, although two thirds of patients would rather die at home.