By Isle of Wight Observer
I recently had a stay in St Mary’s Hospital for quite a big operation that was extremely concerning. The nurses were caring and kind, but were visibly overworked, often flustered and rushing from one patient to another without enough time for personal interaction or patient care. After a lifetime working in senior management, it was obvious to me that there were not enough staff members on duty to handle the patient load, and, as a result, the quality of care suffered.
I worried about how easy it would be to make a mistake that could lead to disaster. For many of us an error at work may be embarrassing or inconvenient; for those stressed care-givers, if a mistake was made when say, dispensing drugs, it could be both tragic and career destroying.
One particularly unsettling moment occurred when I was informed that I had to switch wards; nobody ever told me why, and when I asked nobody appeared to even know. It added to a general sense of disorganisation and, at times, chaos. During the process, my personal belongings were mislaid, which took some time to be found and returned. This slip in management of patient’s personal property added an unnecessary layer of frustration and anxiety to what is already a stressful hospital experience. It may seem trivial, but I was halfway through a book. I’m not a fan of TV, so it meant that instead of being able to escape in the pages of my novel, I had little to do for many hours other than to watch what was going on around me, which only increased my sense of disquiet.
Another noticeable problem was with regards to communication. There were instances after the unscheduled ward move when the switchboard apparently didn’t know where I was and messages from my mainland-based family failed to reach me. This breakdown in communication, particularly in a setting where understanding and reassurance are crucial, left me feeling somewhat isolated and out of touch at a time when support from your loved ones is most needed. Again, this may seem trivial – indeed it does to me now that I am home and I read what I have written – but it was important at the time. It is the failure to get things like this right that leads to a lack of trust in the whole service provided. You ask yourself: “If they can’t sort the trivia out, what failings are there higher up?”
I don’t wish to criticise the staff, who were clearly compassionate and concerned about the situation. I spoke to one lovely lady on the night shift who told me that she had always dreamed of being a nurse and helping to make people better, but she is now looking into different careers because of her disillusionment and frustration. I’m not even sure it is the management’s fault. I’m not privy to what resources they have available, and, as the old saying goes: “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” Is it all down to money? I don’t know. We keep hearing that more money than ever is going in to our health service – if that is true there is something very wrong with the overall system. I know that it would be a waste of time and precious resources to lodge an official complaint. It is not that nobody knows the problems – but nobody ever sorts them out.
I suspect that most Islanders, like me, are not interested in hearing politicians play blame games over who is at fault; we just want somebody to make the system work for all of us who rely on it. Our health system is free at the point of delivery – but it is not free. Those of us who have contributed towards it all our lives deserve to get what we have paid for!