"Nursing staff handovers"

My parent was in the geriatric ward having broken their hip from a fall and recovering from the operation. They were of high need.

Firstly, we can say that many of the nurses were fantastic, respectful, and communicative. However, we wondered how my parent would have coped if we had not been at their bedside (three to four of us taking turns in visiting). And what made us particularly sad was that our parent had that support but we could see from walking past many doors in the time we visited our parent over a month or so, we believe that other patients didn't.  

We flagged the need for our parent to have soluble panadol rather than crushed panadol because they had dysphagia, we asked that Sustagen be given in between meals rather than with meals as recommended in the first instance by medical staff.  

We found the shift changeovers left us curious - a new nurse seemed to bring a lack of awareness regarding my parent's personal and medical needs which had been communicated previously. We brushed our parent's teeth, changed them in and out of clothes and gave them the time they needed to do this. We made sure my parent's water was close. Because our parent suffers from bronchiectasis, they are always challenged with their breathing and needs to sit up in bed.

My parent would after a trip to the toilet, panic about the position of pillows. They needed them to be at the right height, etc for them to feel comfortable and support their breathing.

Generally, it seemed the nurses did not have time for this fussing and when my parent moved on to another hospital, this became a little more evident with my parent relaying a story about a particular nurse who they found for want of a better word, heartless.

I witnessed two doctors visit my parent's bedside at SCGH (one of them was the designated/regular doctor). In my opinion, they were both dressed in street clothes. The doctor had a bag over their shoulder. At no time during the visit did they put this down and talked to my parent from the end of the bed. There was no sitting down, no impression given that they had time for my parent.    

The doctor mentioned delirium to me and we discussed it briefly. While the conversation was OK as far as it went, it suddenly became clear to me that delirium was something that needed some management. It was not until my parent was admitted to the other hospital a month after being in Charlies did we see educational information on boards in corridors about delirium.

Overall, this story is about the smaller things, perhaps that makes a hospital stay so much more bearable for elderly people and people in pain. I could add to this but basically, what I feel is lacking and I would say, in my opinion, mostly due to staff/patient ratios is that extra care and that extra attention patients need to flourish, rather than just survive in hospital settings.

At the same time, my whole family, including my parent can only be grateful for the care and attention that was delivered during two hospital stays. And my parent did realise how lucky they were to have a family to support them and still does in their post-hospital stage, where their independence has been all but taken away since their fall.  

I realise we are still very fortunate in a country like Australia to have the health care that we do. It could be much, much worse. But it's often the little things that can make such a difference in these hospital settings.