"We fought to have our parent prescribed"

Our parent was admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital about two years ago with a serious chest infection. The staff said that given our parent was an elderly patient, had had a stroke and was currently in permanent aged care and was being peg fed, I believe they considered our parent did not have a very good quality of life, therefore I felt in their opinion, the best thing to do is to deny any medication and just let them pass away. They also suggested we stop feeds. They reiterated their suggestion every day when our family arrived to visit.

Our family, on the other hand, believed our parent was very much loved and we wanted only the best care for them. They enjoy coming home on weekends, spending time with family, including grandchildren and their beloved pet and I believe is not in any pain. They do not have dementia and still manages to laugh with us and friends.

We fought to have our parent prescribed and administered with five days of IV antibiotics. On the 4th day, it seemed a staff member accidentally removed the IV and the doctor had such a hard time finding another line that I believe the doctor said it's only one day so why to bother. We made the doctor put one in so that our parent could have the last day of antibiotics as prescribed.

At the end of the 5 days, it felt they sent our parent home, basically to die. Our parent’s GP, however, had other ideas. The GP prescribed another week of antibiotics and our parent made a full recovery.