Last night the local newspaper arrived as usual. The front page was dominated by the appalling report on standards at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. We were not surprised.
The RLI has been the main hospital near us for the last 40 years or so. In that time the standards have gone up & down. At present they seem on a down.
We weren't surprised read this report after the Fox's treatment this year.
Yes, when he had his stroke, he got into A&E immediately. They observed him, but any improvement was left to his own body - but that may be all that could be done. They couldn't do all the tests that Saturday as the Ultrasound department was closed for the weekend. He was given an appointment to return to the hospital on the following Monday between 9 & 9.30am. You can imagine our surprise when we got there to discover the department couldn't see him to 2pm & in the meantime he should walk into the town centre, pushing me in a wheelchair - & this a man who had had a stroke a couple of days before & was still feeling the effects. It had been a long walk for him just to get to the required ward. I had been able to push myself along the hospital corridors.
Even after that, when trying to establish the new medicine regime, he had to have several blood tests. Once it took over a month to get back the results. And that was only when his GP phoned the hospital directly to get the answers.
As for his hearing problems this year! In July he was sent for a MRI scan. He still hasn't had the results. Eventually I rang the hospital to find out what had happened. An appointment was made. It was cancelled by the hospital a few weeks later. A second appointment was made. By this time it was September. We went in to the hospital to be told by the receptionist that the clinic had been cancelled, go home. They gave us another appointment which has since been cancelled. We've now got another appointment early in November. It's anybody's guess whether it will happen, or whether, by this time, they've lost the test results & we have to start all over again!
We're telling ourselves at least the Fox's problems haven't been too dire. The delay in tests & their results have been frustrating rather than life-threatening.
Our heart goes out to Dick Gobble's wife, who has cancer, which the hospital only diagnosed after a year of tests & regular hospital overnight stays. Needless to say, the tumour is now so huge it is inoperative. All that can be done is to make her as comfortable as possible, pray, make sure she feels as loved as possible as she slowly dies.
So much for our local NHS hospital! High time they pulled their socks up. We feel so sorry for the receptionists who we suspect are getting a lot of abuse from understandably impatient patients.
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