"Communication and care of bedsore"

I am a carer of a patient of Wagga Wagga Rural Referral Hospital and am writing this for them. 

To whom it may concern,

The patient was taken to Wagga Wagga Base by Ambulance one evening a few months ago after a fall at home where they lay on a tiled ensuite floor for 7 hrs. They had smashed their right humerus bone near the shoulder joint. It was assessed that an operation to insert a plate was the best option which was carried out successfully and all is well apart from the pain.

Unfortunately, the patient has multiple autoimmune conditions, plus breast cancer surgery (a few years ago) which they control with regimented medication times which I believe was not possible in the hospital. This is due to their different medication times and, in my opinion, a completely disorganised routine, eg. pre-meal medications given 1.5hrs beforehand or after the meal arrived, medictions to be taken with food were generally given after food, sometimes 1.5hrs after food. I believe this caused a Crohn's flare-up, making it difficult for the patient to control their bowel and more upsetting when having to wait for 20 to 30 minutes after the buzzer was rang for a Nurse to help them to the toilet, sometimes too late.

In my opinion, this happens because the nurses do not have the time for personal care of patients as they are typing on computers, having 1Hr change-over meetings (4 times a day) and taking blood pressure 4 times a day.

When in Ward 5, the patient developed a bedsore. When moved to Ward 4, an airbed was supplied and Zinc cream applied to the area.

The patient was discharged a few weeks later as their arm was stable and we believed by getting them home and back on their medication routine, things would improve.

There was no mention of the patient's bedsore when released so I tried to treat as in the hospital. It became worse. Went to own doctor who had the nurse dress it but this came off in 12hrs. Was to stay on for 3>5 days. Redressed myself and the same happened.

I called a home doctor service as it was the weekend, who prescribed dressings but were unavailable at chemist the next day and had wait for a special order. Decided to call District Nurse who said they would call two days later which they did.

The Nurse that called said that bedsore had not been treated right and the hospital should have organised the District Nurse to visit on release. So now the patient is now suffering tremendous pain from a large developed bedsore which may need scaping out to help healing. This would mean going under anesthetic again which, in my opinion, flares up the Crohn's.

There are many more issues I could bring up but I hope you can understand from what I have written that we do not think the care received was up to standard as there seemed to be a nurse shortage, along with a disorganised structure of procedure.