Last updated at 15:06, Monday, 12 January 2009

WRITING newspaper columns is a strange business. Is anybody out there reading what I write? Does anybody care?

Following last week’s outpouring on how my mother-in-law was mistreated at Furness General Hospital it seems that many people do indeed have cause to care.

Thankfully she is now at home where through the excellent ministrations of the district nurses is as comfortable as possible and recovering from her ordeal.

To make matters worse, if that were possible, the DNs discovered a catheter had not been removed before my mother-in-law was discharged.

More worryingly they were not surprised.

Sadly, the neglect of the elderly in our local hospital is not a subject upon which I would seek to congratulate myself for highlighting.

And, somewhat contrarily, responses from aggrieved relatives who tell me of similar experiences make me both mad and sad.

Mr D whose 84 year-old friend was in Abbey View rehabilitation centre

“. . . I could see he needed some assistance. He said he was eating nothing.

Other elderly patients had food put in front of them and hardly touched.”

A concerned Mr D began to take in a little food for his friend at meal times, until he was stopped.

“The sister told me not to appear at meal times. Patients had to try and do what they did at home.

“I told her that no food, no strength and therefore no rehabilitation.”

His friend told him to, “Leave it alone.”

“He started crying and I had to leave,” said Mr D who was not alone in contacting me.

Mrs M told me: “One day when we visited our mam her dressing gown had fallen under the bed where it remained all day, and the cleaner swept around it – this really doesn’t give us any confidence in the fight against hospital infections.”

Mrs M’s mother was supposed to stay in for the weekend to “get more mobile” following treatment for dehydration.

By the Monday, the 75 year-old had picked up a bug.

“We were allowed to stay with her until 10pm,” said Mrs M, “Taking her backwards and forwards to the ladies, asking I don’t know how many nurses to ‘please do something to help her’.

“The response was ‘If it’s a bug we prefer to let nature take its course, but if you want to get a sample we will send it for examination’.

“It was left to us to get the requested sample ourselves and pass it on to the nursing staff.”

Almost daily stories such as theses and worse appear in the national newspapers.

Elderly people ignored for hours in hospitals while they await treatment.

But this isn’t a hospital in anytown anywhere.

This is Furness General. This is Barrow.

This isn’t about people we don’t know.

These are our friends and relations.

This is OUR hospital treating OUR people.

Can nobody there put and end to this disgrace in OUR hospital?

First published at 11:52, Monday, 12 January 2009
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk