"My grandparent's treatment"

I would like to start this by expressing my utmost disgust in the procedures I witnessed my dying grandparent endure. They just recently passed away.

My grandparent had been suffering from heart and kidney failure the last year and was in palliative care, where the majority of their remaining time occurred in their own home.

I had travelled from Melbourne to visit my grandparent in the hospital. About 15 minutes after I arrived, they began to have an attack. Two family members and I were all present. This lasted 6 hours and I believe the reason it lasted 6 hours is because a palliative care doctor changed their plan and it seemed they did not have a replacement plan in place.

All major pain relief drugs, that I believe would have helped my grandparent during this time, were removed and the only thing the nursing staff were allowed to give was Fentanyl, in small doses every half hour or so. The nursing staff and the young intern doctor that tried to help during this time, I felt, were physically and emotionally stressed and expressed their deepest apologies, as their hands were legally tied. One other drug that was marked down as being allowed to give my grandparent, had not been stocked in the medical supply room. It seems the doctor and any staff that were part of changing my grandparent's plan did not even have the decency to even supply the drugs that would prevent them from being in pain.

It took a nurse to call a senior emergency room doctor a couple of hours into the attack, to come and see my grandparent. The emergency doctor's hands were also tied and was only able to supply one increased dose of medication for my grandparent. Then another doctor, a registrar, was called. This doctor took one look at my grandparent and supplied enough pain relief to be able to go to sleep. The registrar doctor seemed physically upset by my grandparent's appearance also.

In between watching my grandparent scream in pain, and asking me to 'put them out of their misery', it took nursing staff sometimes 45 minutes to attend their bedside. This was even before they had left to get pain relief. I had to stand there and lie to my grandparent that the pain would stop soon.

My grandparent was elderly. They had numerous calls to their house for the paramedics to attend during the months leading up to their death. It seemed the paramedics, every time, were able to at least make my grandparent comfortable to be able to be transported to the hospital. They were 100% accountable and present for my grandparent, every time they needed pain relief or help, in my opinion.

A couple of days after the attack, I had to watch my grandparent scream in pain, watch them cry and ask myself and my family to kill them because they were in so much pain. In my opinion, no one should have to ever go through that or witness it. I am emotionally traumatised from not just this night, but the days and nights that followed.

In the last week, I witnessed the nurses having too many patients to care for between themselves. It seemed two nurses had 18 patients to care for on a night shift. If something serious had happened to multiple people, I believe they would have had no chance of helping them. My grandparent was in severe pain and a syringe driver with constant pain relief had to be attached. They also had to have injections in between the syringe driver doses, as they were still in pain even with it attached.

Several nurses were wonderful and checked on my grandparent day and night. Other nurses were atrocious in my opinion. We had to almost argue with them that my grandparent was on a specific 'pain-free plan' and could receive pain relief when needed. It seemed they wanted to argue it with us and told us 'well they look fine to me' and acted as though we didn't even know our own family member. I feel we were never rude with any of the staff members at any time. In my opinion, the behaviour of the rude nursing staff made us feel helpless.

If myself and other family members were not present 24/7, I believe my grandparent would have suffered even more than they did. They did not deserve to die the way they did. People wouldn't let their dog suffer the way we watched our family member die.

Recently my grandparent passed away. I watched them take their final breath. Arrangements had already been made for undertakers to come to collect them from Rutherglen. The young intern doctor that tried to help my grandparent assessed them on their death. This intern was wonderful in my opinion and we are grateful for what they tried to do for our grandparent.

We were allowed to spend an hour with my grandparent when they had passed. The nursing staff told us that the undertaker would be able to collect them immediately, as everyone was aware we did not want them in the hospital mortuary overnight. My grandparent did not want that.

We received a call late that night from the undertakers. It seemed they were emotionally distressed on the phone. They had been at the hospital 4 hours trying to get my grandparent released to them. It appeared the hospital would not do it because the certificate had not been signed. I believe there were six doctors present when the undertakers were there and none of them could/would sign the death certificate.

After my grandparent suffering the way they did and then finally being at peace. I and my family felt some relief, knowing they were no longer suffering, but then we get this phone call and it just added to the absolute cluster-f*** of a week that we have had to be a part of.

I would not wish this experience on anyone. There are several other issues that happened during this ordeal, but I am currently so emotionally exhausted I cannot even bring myself to think about them at this point.

In my opinion, there needs to be a serious over-hall on the procedures that occur in that hospital. I will personally be seeing to it that this disgusting treatment of a human being, my grandparent, will not happen again at Wodonga Hospital.

I and my family are absolutely tired of listening to staff saying sorry, when all they had to do was follow the plan put in place so that my grandparent did not suffer.