"Where is the privacy and dignity?"

Mum was admitted to Causeway with suspected sepsis - 2nd admission since May. She is in her 80s with Diabetes, vascular dementia and leg ulcers.

Mum needs support with continence and wears pad and pants but still regularly used the toilet. In hospital she was stuck in a nappy and kept in bed - never offered a toilet or commode. Mum is mobile with a zimmer. On numerous occasions I found my mum in a wet bed with wet nappies on - the evidence of this was the moisture sores she developed on her bottom. My mum is supported at home by my dad, carers and myself. Her skin is always perfect. I then had to start coming into the hospital to wash and change my mum - give her a commode and once she got stronger start walking her to the toilet. This was not excellence (one of the values).

On discharge I had arranged to pick my mum up at 10:30am. When I came in my mum's bed was empty - she was in the discharge lounge with another male patient in a nappy!!  She was in her nightdress and slippers although it’s the start of Nov. I had to put my mum on a wheelchair and take her to the public toilets in the foyer of the hospital to toilet her and change her into her clothes for discharge. Where is the privacy and dignity in this, never mind the impact for my mum being confused and not knowing where she was. To say I was disgusted is an understatement. A simple phone call to ask me to come in earlier if they needed the bed would have been a solution. I feel there should be a criteria for dumping patients in a discharge room - it’s a square room like a treatment room waiting area with no facilities for disabled or vulnerable patients.

I found the whole nursing care to be very poor apart from the days when RQIA were doing an inspection and then they seemed to have all the best staff and to have recruited staff in from other places to help them get sorted in the morning before the inspection took place. 

Causeway have some excellent nurses but they were supported by some agency staff whose care was way below the standards and who had bad attitudes. There appeared to be no leadership or standards on the ward my mum was in, Medical 2.