Pretentious Priorities Part Two.

When Hari had been admitted on this occasion they had found it difficult to site the drip when she was in A&E. They had to resort to siting the drip in her neck but assured me that this would be moved within a couple of days.

It didn't happen!

Siting a drip in the neck is extremely uncomfortable for the patient and makes movement of any kind painful. It was impossible to do anything with Hari except the essentials whilst the drip was in her neck. I repeatedly complained to the nurses about the fact that the drip hadn't been re-sited but nothing was done. Hari spent Christmas lying in her bed, with the drip in her neck, unable to be moved more than the bare minimum - this was so cruel when the drip could have been re-sited within days of her admission.

Eventually matters came to a head. The doctors decided that they wanted Hari to start eating again and ignored my requests for them to move the drip first as the movements required for swallowing would be so painful for her with the drip still sited in her neck. I pointed out that there was more chance of her being able to eat if the drip was moved. They refused! They decided that the drip could be moved if she started eating! It was as if moving the drip was being used as some kind of bribe to make Hari eat. If she ate they would move the drip - if she didn't it would stay where it was. They appeared to lack the intelligence to realise that she COULDN'T physically eat until the drip was moved!

Enough was enough - once again!!!

I was furious and informed the nurses that I was going for a coffee (and a smoke!) and that if the drip was still in Hari's neck when I came back that I would remove it myself!

Within minutes a lesser god came to find me in the parents room. This lesser god was Marilyn - shame I can't remember the rest of her name - it may come to me at a later date! Did Marilyn come to tell me that she was about to re-site the drip? She did not. She flounced into the room and, in front of numerous other horrified and shocked parents, proceeded to harangue me about the level of Hari's health on admission! She made false allegations about the level of care I gave Hari and told me that she would report me to the police if I removed the drip!

Well this sort of attitude was inevitable - remember that the last post details the errors of the hospital that were actually involved in Hari's admission - first rule of defence for staff was attack - blame the parents to protect the errant doctors!

I made it clear exactly what I thought of her attitude and informed the ward staff that she was to go nowhere near Hari.

Shortly after this David Baum came to the ward and agreed that the drip could be removed.
He also said that Marilyn would do this - she wasn't actually foolish enough to show her face and a different lesser god removed the drip.

Hari was clearly relieved! At last she could move properly without the drip site causing pain and was more than happy to start eating again. Without the drip in her neck she began to improve generally and was clearly much more comfortable. The annoying thing is that this could have happened so much sooner - if they had bothered to listen to my repeated requests for the drip to be moved as they had promised. Their actions in failing to do so were cruel, unfeeling and detrimental to Hari.

David Baum, to his credit, whilst not actually apologising for this fiasco, did state that I had clearly been right about this.

Marilyn? Well I heard tell that she went to Australia - Australia is welcome to her - although I have always been of the opinion that she hadn't travelled far enough away for our liking!!!