Tell us about any health mistakes…

Monday 22nd November 2010, 2:30PM GMT.

PATIENTS are being encouraged to report mistakes in an attempt to raise the standard of Guernsey’s health service.

Last year, nearly 2,000 incidents were recorded on the department’s new electronic system.

Half of those were slips, trips and falls, but others included drug errors, resuscitation, birth, clinical and minor injury incidents.

Staff highlighted the majority but the director of public health, Dr Stephen Bridgman, pictured, wants more patients to feel they can come forward.

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Dragon Slayer

November 23, 2010 at 5:39 pm

Did you say you wanted to be told about health mistakes? Well I can tell you of one which I am shocked and appalled to believe happened.

An Uncle who is 88 years old was discharged from Hospital yesterday after having been readmitted a week earlier because he was discharged too soon after an operation.

The details of what was wrong his condition in Hospital was are irrelevant on here, but I am appalled that neither he, nor his wife can really cope and yet they are left to do everything. He can hardly walk – to the extent that his bed has now been moved downstairs into the sitting room and he is elderly with signs of dementia. When he was readmitted to Hospital he had fallen trying to get to the bathroom.

His wife tries to do everything she can but she is in her 80s and can not lift him or anything. He can’t be left alone.

. . . so whats the mistake?

The fact that we tried to talk to the nursing staff while he was in Hospital about follow up and help and he has essentially been given none. He was transported home by St Johns Ambulance – they did not ensure that he had the medication he needed, his wife has no transport other than to walk or use the bus and we only learned yesterday evening that he had a prescription that could not be fulfilled until today.

Until now, they have been coping with help only from their neighbours (some very good neighbours who do more than you would normally expect for them) and ourselves – we are not direct family (we are related through my husband’s step-mother), their daughters and son live in the UK and whilst they try to do what they can, they are being told that there aren’t services available – it is very difficult to get help. They have been told that there are no Carers or Home Helps, and the organisations he has previously helped with himself for many years don’t seem to want to know now.

We will do anything we can to help, however is it really right that when we (and others) have asked for support for them whilst he was in Hospital, none has been really and truthfully offered to them.

Are all elderly people treated that way or is the Island getting like the UK where the only way you can get help when in your older years is to sell up everything you have so that some elderly care home takes the benefit of the money and assets you have worked all your years for?

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