"Caring for my grandparent"

Similar to the story about Burundi Ward at TSH. My grandparent was on that ward for an exceptionally long time, and their deterioration was heartbreaking. However we found the only good thing to be the doctors who were looking after them. 

On numerous occasions myself, or other family members found my grandparent to be unclean and noted it had been some days since they had been showered / bathed.

The nurses on that ward left a dirty adult nappy under their sheets - which was found by another relative, rightly so went off. Their bedside table was constantly filthy and was seemingly only cleaned when a family member was there visiting.

Additionally, for someone who was so identifiably unwell, my grandparent got 4 infectious diseases on that ward in their 10 weeks. I understand that the combination of those diseases contributed to their rapid decline. At one point, the last infectious disease they had was picked up by a doctor - who said they had had the disease for at least 5 days - which I believe would of been noticed earlier had my grandparent been bathed regularly.

Additionally there were numerous occasions when my grandparent pressed the buzzer for assistance for the bathroom, On one occasion, they had to wait 20mins, and by that time, they had wet themselves. When the nurse eventually came in - after I went and got them (and I saw they were just sitting at the nurses station scrolling social media!) it seemed to me that they were frustrated that my grandparent had wet themselves and required to be changed and the sheets had to be changed. At one point a comment was made to myself, well you could of taken them.

There were only 3 nurses I saw on that ward who I felt went above and beyond - but obviously they can't work 24/7. On days that a family member visited and we saw one of those 3, we at least knew our loved one was going to be okay for that shift.

Additionally, trying to get an ACAT assessment was like pulling teeth in our experience. The social worker advised us they only work two days a week. So what was happening the other 3 days of the work week - apparently nothing. By the time the assessment had occurred, my grandparent again had deteriorated so badly that the referral numbers did not match their need anymore. So we had to start the process of trying to find a facility again - which is exceptionally difficult regardless.  

Unfortunately, these are just a snippet of our time at the hospital, our experience at TSH has left us so disheartened, and quite frankly, heartbroken, that we never want to be a patient at this hospital, and when people ask about our grandparents time there, and we tell them some of the experiences, I recall they all say the same thing to us, oh, we've heard terrible things about that hospital, we don't ever want to go there. I think that if that's what your community members are saying, that's really not okay.