Health Care Stories: Bradford, UK

Joolz laments the troubles she's had with Britain's health care system.

My mother - a dying Alzheimer's sufferer - was left in the same blood- and fluid-stained robe for 3 days. No one would wash her or her hair & I was told it 'wasn't worth it' & if I wanted her (filthy, matted) hair cleaned up I'd have to get a hairdresser in from the Town. I cleaned her myself with wet wipes while the staff drank tea and gossiped over a celebrity magazine. Across the ward from her another elderly Alzheimer's woman screamed in pain from a full bladder until I forcibly got a nurse to attend to her and was told 'she's such a pain, that one.' Elder care in the NHS is a constant horror story as elders are considered a 'nuisance' and are treated accordingly.

I had a garden accident when a Yucca plant spiked my eye. The manual debridement done at the local ER was done so badly the resulting scars had to be removed by laser debridement at the nearby teaching hospital. The care at the ER hospital was so bad, at one point the bandage contact lens the nurses put in had to be scraped off my eyeball because they'd put in the wrong size, backwards. It was 3 years of agony and infection during which I nearly lost the sight in my right eye. After 4 years of trouble it has finally healed.


Joolz
Bradford, United Kingdom



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