Advice needed please, hubby in hospital

"I don't understand why as his wife you can't talk ditectly to the Drs"

?Misssy this is the NHS we are talking about, assuming from the reference to dialing 111. From experience, half the time there are no Drs available to talk to! As for finding out anything over a weekend forget it.

The best suggestion I found is to arrange to see the consultant at the end of ward rounds, but I know even that doesn't often work.

Directly not ditectly!

'Do not expect the hospital to keep you informed'

From your posts regarding your emergency hospital admission, neither you, the patient, nor your wife were kept informed. Didn't you have to 'buy' your medical notes?

My wife was not really told anything other than I'd had a bleed on the brain and she had know idea what that was or how serious it was. She doesn't recall being told anything about my liver, despite asking why I was getting more yellow by the day.

Yes, I paid to get my records. There are pages and pages of them and doctor's handwriting is atrocious. So I go back to them every now and then and discover another little nugget. About two weeks ago I had another read. I discovered that the reason that they moved me from Warwick to Coventry, is that they don't have a neuro surgeon team and operating facilities there.

Although they decided not to operate in the end, it is clear that the intention was to take a Black & Decker to my head to relieve the pressure of the swelling. That was never ever mentioned to me.

I sympathise with the OP. My wife was beside herself with worry and it was a very difficult time for her, not knowing anything.

I thought I'd remembered that. It doesn't bare thinking about. I too sympathise with the OP, particularly with her own health problems. What about counselling pm?

RH I am amazed and horrified that you had to pay to access your medical records or was this before the legislation changed in 1990

Nat

I used to work as a medical secretary and also assistant practice manager at a gp surgery. Patients request copies of their medical notes for all sorts of reasons. Insurance companies dealing with medical negligence claims, with the patients permission often request copies.

We used to charge 6p per page up to a maximum of £50 (gp surgery) but that was several years ago. No idea what hospitals charge, but am sure RHGB will let you know about his saga and reasons for accessing his notes.

I went in to Warwick A&E at approx. 4:00pm and was transferred to Coventry at 4:00am, after I had various tests including a CT scan and also a blood plasma transfusion. So 12 hours.

I spent the best part of two months at Cov, before I threatened to discharge myself.

Your records are free, but hospitals are allowed an admin fee of up to £50. I was charged £25 at Warwick & £50 at Cov.

So yes, they were free, but they cost me £75. So I always comment that I had to pay for them. I understand admin charges, but I do not call £75 free. If they had told me about what was happening, what had happened, I would have had no need to purchase them.

 

You're up late. Think I've gone past being tired. What a shock to discover you could have needed brain surgery. Even more worrying neither you or your were told

"What about counselling pm?"

You're just like my missus, you are. Like a dog with a bone.

I promise to send you a PM tomorrow/today (Sunday). I might have a lie in, so please don't be chasing me if you haven't had it by 9:00am.

I've got a late pass tonight. I've actually been quite busy today and I'm just starting to slow down. Half an hour of TV should finish me off.

I can laugh about it now, but the only thing that saved me, was that I was alert & orientated. I had 6mm midline shift and anything from 5mm upwards is scalpel territory. They have a system called the Glasgow coma scale. And I scored well on it, other wise, it would have been, power up the circular saw, we're going exploring.

Well you blokes need reminding about things. I've been telling my OH all week he needs to pay the balance due on a holiday. "Stop going on, I'm well aware of that, I've far more important things to do, wish that's all I've got to bother with, Errr I think my voluntary redundancy payout is more important etc" Funny how he doesn't need reminding about golf subs

"Power up the circular saw, we're going exploring"

?Only you could phrase the possibility of life threatening brain surgery into a comical sentence! 

I know all about the GCS scale, I love casualty and Holly City haha

Just catching up on here - been without my laptop for over 10 days due to network changeover and mix up.  Really don't like using my mobile except for fb;  can't type out replies, think I develop 16 fingers!!!

Glad to be back on with the fam - you two (RH) make me laugh so much you make me pee lol.  Both give positive and intentive answers and you emanate one another with your punctuating one liners.  Priceless.  Both of you have loaded answers that are so very informative. 

And RH, for goodness sake, you have some sense of humour which I totally "get".  My hubs uses a circular saw regularly and now I will think of you.  What a terribly scary situation you were in and to come through it and throw out humour is a very strong quality of personality.  So glad you are here to tell the tale and so glad for your family.  Respect bud.

And vicks, I worked in Occupational Health at our local hospital and I experienced some pretty scary experiences when I was left "in charge" and I also love Holby City ha ha ha.

Missed posting on here - keep fighting guys.  Never endless but never give in.

G. x

Hi gwen

i wondered where you'd got to and you've just popped up! RHGB talk about a lazy Sunday lie in, it's the middle of the afternoon and I'm still waiting haha.

Good to know you're ok gwen

RHGB my daughter in law asked me to thank you for advice you posted to Joanna as her mum is in hospital and so far they don't seem to have done very much at all with her.

As you know, I went to see her mum this afternoon, mainly to see if I could get any information about her mums treatment.

She (DIL) has twice now taken time off from work to speak to her mums consultant and twice he's never turned up. Like Joanna she's asked to see her mums notes and was told data protection and patient confidentiality made it impossible.

However someone left the notes at the end of her bed and she took screen shots of medical records and it seems they've only done bloods and a chest X-ray.

She managed to meet me at the hospital to find out exactly what was going on. Spoke to two nurses who were totally uninterested and said they didn't know anything and walked away. She eventually cornered a very young dr. He told us they were waiting for scan results. There was nothing in her notes about any scan.

According to her notes, LFT results showed significant liver damage query cirrhosis. No-ones told her this or her mum. To cut a long story short we found another dr and asked why her mum hadn't had an abdominal scan to find out what's going on ( your advice, thanks)

This dr thought she'd had one, or was waiting to have one and he'd go and find someone . Half an hour later, still no doctor and we had to leave as visiting was over.

"Like Joanna she's asked to see her mums notes and was told data protection and patient confidentiality made it impossible."

One of the first things they do when admitted to hospital for anything vaguely serious is ask, who is your next of kin and contact details. Then next, is, do you want them to be made aware of everything. I am assuming the mum is compos mentis? Ask her is she put the DIL as NOK and to be given access to her treatment and condition.

The fact that you are not being told and that the DIL has arranged to see the consultant twice and he did not turn up, means it is time I would give PALS the patient liaison service a call. They are admin staff, not clinical, so are a different breed to the nurses and doctors. I have never once found any of them, anything but sympathetic and helpful. They may be able to get someone to actually turn and talk to you. Failing that, it is them that you put a complaint in through and they process it on your behalf.

Joanne, is having similar problems and her partner's scan was delayed from yesterday to today, whether it happens is another thing. I do not know why there is such an issue over a scan, they are vital to diagnosis and they take 20 minutes tops.

I have been in touch with Joanne by PM several times over the past few days. She has had other things on her, so has not been posting here. She has given me permission to post an update on the forum.

Joe, her partner has actually been in hospital before. This was not the first time he had gone jaundiced. He has oesophageal varices, he doesn't take his medication for that because it makes him light headed and at times has caused him to fall over. He also doesn't take his lactulose which leads to confusion of the brain at times. In Joanne's own words, Joe is not the best of patients (men eh?) and has skipped appointments.

The good news is, he had is abdominal scan yestreday (NB, persistence pays off) and it would appear that his liver is not 'a lot' worse than his last scan. To be on the safe side, he is having an MRI scan today, regarding his falls. There are a few other things, like he has gallstones, but this is quite common in drinkers, I have them too and they don't cause any problems. The swelling (ascites) has come down as previously stated.

The only other issue is a low platelet count, this is the clotting ability and again this is common in drinkers and they will give him a transfusion to help bring this figure back up. After that, they have said he can go home.

Let's hope when they send his gastro follow up appointmnet, he attends this time.

 

Hiya

Yes daughter is down as next of kin, but no-one seems to say anything and when she does get told something and she says something to different staff, 99% of the time they say something different. When she queries this she gets told "your best bet is to speak to the consultants secretary and try and make an appointment or catch him when he's finished ward rounds"!! !!

?Apparently DIL was told last night that there's a waiting list for scans, urgent and emergency scans are done first and take priority! She said she's been here a month, and why scare me to death and interrupt me doing a presentation to pitch to potential customers,saying I need to get to the hospital asap to sign DNR form. Isn't that an emergency and was told it was at the time. So why hasn't she had a scan then, do you propose to wait till she's dead?!

You also said she wouldn't survive the night, to which the ward manager said there was little point in doing one as we didn't think she'd survive !!

Shes going to follow your advice about making a complaint and go through PALS. Her main anger now is that she was told by the ward manager that there was no point in doing a scan as we thought she was going to die . She is now back on the routine list!!!

?She was also told by one nurse that they don't want to put her through the trauma and cause unnecessary pain!! What trauma, what pain, fgs it's an abdominal scan, not major heart surgery .

Will keep you updated, and many thanks

Glad to hear he's had his scan

Admire you for this bud.  You never fail to deliver.  Respect.   G.

Hi gwen

yeah he has his uses, but don't tell him too often haha

on a serious note he's like a human Google, and very helpful 😄😄