Remember To Feed And Water Daily

[dales]

Friday, May 27 2011

Elderly patients dying of thirst: Doctors forced to prescribe drinking water to keep the old alive, reveals devastating report on hospital care

By Sophie Borland

Last updated at 12:32 PM on 27th May 2011

Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital.

The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards.

Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders.

Failing: The Royal Free in Hampstead, London, was one of three hospitals that were not meeting basic standards required by law during recent visits

The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink.

Dehydration contributes to the death of more than 800 hospital patients every year.

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Another 300 die malnourished. The latest report – by the Care Quality Commission – found patients frequently complained they were spoken to in a ‘condescending and dismissive’ manner.

The watchdog said three of 12 NHS trusts visited in the past three months were failing to meet the most basic standards required by law.

They were: Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust and Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust in North London.

The findings follow a joint campaign by the Mail and the Patients Association last year which exposed shocking examples of substandard care.

Similar failings were highlighted earlier this year by the Health Service Ombudsman who cited cases of patients left to become so thirsty they could not cry for help.

Since February, a team of inspectors from the CQC – including a nurse and an elderly patient – have been visiting 100 NHS trusts unannounced to check elderly patients are treated with dignity.


Stamping it out: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley ordered the review by the CQC to put a quick end to poor patient care

They found other, less serious concerns at a further three trusts: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Homerton University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in London and the Wye Valley NHS Trust – meaning just half of hospitals were providing the most basic standards of care.

The results of the remaining trusts will be published later this year but the watchdog said the findings from this first wave of inspections was likely to be a ‘snapshot’ of all hospitals across the country.

At Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, Worcestershire, inspectors reported ‘major’ concerns on nutrition. Doctors often have to prescribe ‘drinking water’ for patients to ensure nurses remember to give them enough fluids.

At Ipswich Hospital, the elderly are made to suffer the indignity of using a commode by their bedside because staff are too busy to take them to the toilet.


Inspectors also found routine examples of patients’ meals being dumped by their bed while they were asleep and then taken away again untouched.

Emergency call buttons are often left out of patients’ reach and they often have to press them seven times before a nurse responds. One elderly man was forced to attract attention by banging on his water jug or shouting.

Other concerns included staff not closing the curtains around a patient’s bed before examining them. The three failing trusts will be given several months to improve before being inspected again. If they are still not deemed to be up to scratch the worst could be fined, and the relevant wards shut down.

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: ‘The overwhelmingly majority of people of this country would never treat their older friends and relatives like this, and yet this is the experience of too many people on hospital wards.

‘These are not the extras, these are not try-to-dos. These are must-dos.’



Michelle Mitchell, of Age UK, said: ‘Every patient should be properly fed and treated with dignity as part of basic care in hospitals, and it is extremely worryingly that a quarter of the first twelve hospitals to be spot checked were non-compliant in both areas.’

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said: ‘The most important people in the NHS are its patients – that’s why I wanted the CQC to look into the treatment of older patients and stamp out poor care fast.’

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics revealed that in 2009, 816 hospital patients were listed on death certificates as having died suffering from dehydration.

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

[Long Run]

All's well when they go to the well. If the story is even partially correct, it is ridiculous that patients suffer from dehydration while in full time medical care.

[The Hen]

At times I wish we would consider our elderly like the Japanese do and revere them.

(Even if I am only after a bit of reverence in my old age.)

[rubato]

At times I wish we would consider our elderly like the Japanese do and revere them.

(Even if I am only after a bit of reverence in my old age.)

Or like the Inuit who expect them to walk out onto the ice to be eaten by polar bears.

yrs,
rubato

[SisterMaryFellatio]

I have to say after working in an ED for the past 7 years it really pisses me off how people treat the elderly...its disgusting and what pisses me off more is how easily it is ignored...if it were an animal or a child the law would step in.


I have seen both Nursing homes and families send in the elderly on Xmas Eve so they don't have the burden of looking after them or they can cut wages on Xmas day by cutting back staff by having less residents.

Residents being left for 3 days after a fall with a fractured NOF, pelvis etc etc With no pain relief or medical help other than the EN's shoving panadol down them. Ulcerated legs that havn't been redressed for 5 days!!

Families that call up telling us they are sending in their elderly Mother/Father in by ambulance and they want them admitted because they dont have the time to take them to a Dr's appointment or their schedules are busy!! To be quite honest...it really makes me want to abuse the fuck out of them and say," These so called pains in the arse's wiped your arse fed clothed and gave you love. You are quite happy to take their money when they die so fuckin put yourself out for to show your love consideration and respect for them."

There are on the odd occasion and it is a lot rarer than the above scenario....that a family will have so much love and concern for their elderly parents - it never fails to touch me.

Still to this day i will never forget a son with his 80 year old mother who had raging dementia.....she was obviously a theatre goer in her prime and had a penchant for musicals......instead of being a Dementia patient who bites slaps and screams she could sing countless songs from countless musicals and would burst into song at the most inappropriate times and he would sing along with her holding her hand and set the whole ED laughing!

[The Hen]

There are on the odd occasion and it is a lot rarer than the above scenario....that a family will have so much love and concern for their elderly parents - it never fails to touch me.

Still to this day i will never forget a son with his 80 year old mother who had raging dementia.....she was obviously a theatre goer in her prime and had a penchant for musicals......instead of being a Dementia patient who bites slaps and screams she could sing countless songs from countless musicals and would burst into song at the most inappropriate times and he would sing along with her holding her hand and set the whole ED laughing!

And shouldn't this be the norm rather than the exception?

Ferfucksake, did my mother not do enough bringing me into this bad ol' world that I can't care for her as much as she has cared for me throughout my life?

[Ethel Merman] There's NO business like SHOW business, like NO business I know .....[/Ethel Merman]

[Lord Jim]

I have seen both Nursing homes and families send in the elderly on Xmas Eve

Good Lord, does it get any lower than that?

If there is any justice at all, one day the same thing will happen to them...

[Miles]

For seven years I delivered flowers in a full Santa suit. Many of my stops were to nursing homes where the only contact from family came on certain holidays through flowers. Way too many of the residents didn't even get that. They were just forgotten lonely people who were warehoused just waiting to die alone. I think the children of these poor forgotten men and women should suffer the same fate.

[BoSoxGal]

Devil's advocate weighing in here:

It's easy to feel sorry for an elderly person become infirm by the ravages of age. I felt such sorrow for my step-grandfather, who became resident of a nursing home following a massive stroke and stayed there until his death. However, I wasn't surprised that my grandmother (who I adored) was rarely moved to visit him there; he had been a raging alcoholic who abused her physically and emotionally for the duration of their marriage. There was no love lost between them by the time he had the stroke.

The same holds true in the case of many children who don't wish to visit their aging, infirm parents. I don't have contact with my parents, apart from the occasional scathing letter my mother sends me to remind me that in all ways I have been a terrible disappointment to her and my father from the moment of my birth - from what I can tell, primarily because I am not rich.

I've little doubt that when they become residents of a nursing home, my older brother - the much beloved 'can do no wrong' first-born - will visit them only occasionally, as he does now. Should I move 2500 miles to be nearby and visit them daily/weekly? Should I bend over backward to show such love and attention to parents who spent 30 years reminding me that I was not much more to them than a pain in their asses?

It might be suggested to remember that some of these 'sweet old folk' were, in fact, shitty selfish nasty people in their prime, and they have earned the lack of attention they receive from their children.

I have no guilt whatsoever about my relationship with my parents. For 30 years I tried to please them, at GREAT personal cost that will haunt me to my dying day. I more than repaid their bathing, diapering, clothing and feeding me for 17 years - especially as, I never asked them to have me in the first place.

Don't have children expecting to be cared for in your old age; if that is your expectation, try being a loving parent and you might earn the respect and love of your children that will inspire them to so care for you.

I've no doubt that some of the kids neglecting their parents are shitty, selfish nasty people neglecting perfectly good parents. I'm just saying, it's not always the case.

eta: Of course the medical personnel being paid a decent wage to care for ANY patient should at very least be attentive with regard to hydration.

[@meric@nwom@n]

First off re: What BSG said, ditto and double ditto. I started out as a very jugmental high horse crusader. I no longer judge. Most of the time there are very complicated dynamics behind every face. Think you will care for mom at home if she needs it? Maybe, but what if she is so demented that you can't leave her for a second and you still have to go to work every day? You may think you will get someone in the house to look after her but that all too frequently fails. They steal and abuse or just don't show up sometimes. What if mom starts eating her own shit or painting everything she can with it? Maybe mom was an abusive asshole who does not deserve your time. Or maybe mom is 95 and you are 75 and pretty ill yourself. Life has a way of unraveling out of our control.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I really feel bad for those of you who are estranged from your parents. I love my father dearly and really wish my mom were alive (see my alchol thread for the rest).

[SisterMaryFellatio]

I have seen both Nursing homes and families send in the elderly on Xmas Eve

Good Lord, does it get any lower than that?

If there is any justice at all, one day the same thing will happen to them...

Yep, believe me Jim it can go lower, the stories I could tell.



Much like the private health system here (which I work in) retirement, respite and aged care homes are businesses and at the end of the day their number one priority is MONEY and not patient care that ALWAYS comes secondary!

After what i have witnessed in my job i do not want to go into an Aged Care home and yet i also would not want to put upon my son and be a burden to him.

Solution...when I am no longer able to wipe my own arse....a bottle of bourbon and a plethora of drugs!

[@meric@nwom@n]

I have seen both Nursing homes and families send in the elderly on Xmas Eve

Good Lord, does it get any lower than that?

If there is any justice at all, one day the same thing will happen to them...

Yep, believe me Jim it can go lower, the stories I could tell.



Much like the private health system here (which I work in) retirement, respite and aged care homes are businesses and at the end of the day their number one priority is MONEY and not patient care that ALWAYS comes secondary!

After what i have witnessed in my job i do not want to go into an Aged Care home and yet i also would not want to put upon my son and be a burden to him.

Solution...when I am no longer able to wipe my own arse....a bottle of bourbon and a plethora of drugs!

Ditto and double ditto again. It is always about money.

[Miles]

Those of you who are trying to rationalize/generalise abandoning a "loved one" to a nursing home should be ashamed. The vast number of residents in homes are not shit eating/smearing individuals just lonely forgotten old people whose families no longer have any use for or time for. Perhaps, if you really want to know, you should visit a nursing home and talk to the residents. Do it on a holiday and see just how many have family visiting.

[Scooter]

And all people are saying Miles is that things are not always as they appear to be. My grandmother, my father's mother, lived with us from when my parents were married until she died. She was a vicious bitch who was continually verbally abusive to my mother and to us, her grandchildren, often when she was drunk. Her own daughters, one in Italy and one who lived in the same city as us, flatly refused to have her live with them once they were married and were able to escape for her. Had it been for my father she would long since been packed off to a home. Once he got so angry that he handed her a one way ticket on the next boat back to Palermo. Another time, which I was old enough to remember, she made the mistake of letting my father overhear her telling my sister (then 16 or 17) that she was destined to grow up to be an even bigger slut than my mother. My father packed up all of her things, put her in the cab, shoved some bills in the driver's hand and told him to take her anywhere she wanted to go. It was my mother who always ended up playing peacemaker between them, not that my grandmother ever showed the slightest bit of appreciation towards her for it, or just for generally acting as her slave for almost 30 years. Of course, she put on a really good "sweet little old lady" act towards anyone outside the immediate family, but we all grew up in a house where there was constant conflict due to her drinking and general nastiness. When she died, when I was 18, I was not the least bit sorry.

Some other relatives of ours did not put up with such vile behaviour from their parents and did cart them off to a home, where they no doubt would have come off very convincingly as "lonely forgotten old people" to strangers who had no clue what vicious monsters they had been towards their own flesh and blood.

[@meric@nwom@n]

Do not feel the least bit ashamed of myself for failing to be completely judgmental towards those who make the sometimes heart breaking decision to place seniors in a nursing facility.

People have their reasons. I have learned to respect that.

[@meric@nwom@n]

Scooter: yep and wow. She was quite the beast.

[Scooter]

The thing it, had it been in the world of today, one of two things would have happened: either someone who believed the tales of woe she went telling would have reported my parents to the authorities and they would have been charged with elder abuse, or us kids would have been removed because of the stream of abuse that would emanate from her. I'm surprised I didn't develop a castration complex from constantly being threatened to have my dick and balls ripped off with her bare hands, whenever I made the slightest bit of noise when she was hungover.

[@meric@nwom@n]

I think your father had the right idea. Your mother meant well but it is unfair to raise children in that kind of environment.

[BoSoxGal]

Kindly piss off, Miles.