"Palliative care"

Recently, my grandparent was taken to ED via SJA post mechanical fall at home due to delirium from a UTI.

They were admitted to Moordi with urosepsis and made palliative a couple of days later. I am a healthcare worker and I am beyond appalled at the level of care my grandparent received in their final days.

In my opinion, the staff are extremely uneducated and rude regarding end of life care and it has therefore made the grieving process for myself and my family much more difficult, knowing my grandparent was not taken care of.

Once palliated, a niki pump was not put in until 2 days after this, and in this time I requested multiple nurses to give my grandparent subcutaneous analgesia to ease their agitation and discomfort, to which a nurse told me my grandparent was ‘too difficult’ and ‘refusing to swallow tablets’ (my grandparent was unable to eat or drink) and therefore could not be given analgesia.

As family members, we were the only people who performed mouth care and repositioned them every few hours as the nursing staff were not doing so, therefore we took this upon ourselves. I had to educate my family members how to do this, which is horrible. I believe my grandparent looked unkept and uncomfortable when we were not there (which was not often).

Throughout my grandparent’s time on this ward, I requested a bedside handover, which I feel is the bare minimum for integrating family and patients into nursing care, yet this was never done. On one of these days, a nurse turned around to me and told me to read the handover sheet, to which had multiple other patients details and information on also. They refused to do handover in front of my family members, and requested I relay the information back to them.

My grandparent had a catheter in when they were palliated that had not drained anything in the 6 hours I was present, when questioned about the need for this due to comfort care measures, I was told my grandparent was bypassing. As I understand it, my grandparent sat in their wet pad for this entire time, macerated and sore.

The nurses on the ward did not know I was a healthcare worker until I arrived on my lunch break and sat with my grandparent, this should not make a difference in the care that they were receiving.

When the time came that my grandparent passed away, a nurse heavily entered the room with towels and wipes, and without speaking to any of us family members, proceeded to move their body, when asked what the hurry was for this I recall the nurse responded that my grandparent needs to be moved because they’re soft, this was 10 mins after my grandparent’s passing and the words the nurse chose to use appalled myself and my family in an already difficult time. The words ‘they are soft’ will now be a lasting horrible memory of my grandparent’s death.

There are multiple other things I could write here, and I have chosen to keep nurses names out of this, but this will be taken further to prevent another person’s family member being treated so undignified in the future.