midwife's muse

NHS

I'm ashamed to admit that I work for the NHS. My son-in-law was discharged 3 days ago following his bowel resection. Yesterday daughter asked me what I thought about his wound being inflammed and firm one side. I asked if it was dry, yes. Is he well? Yes. When are his staples being removed? Nurse was coming round today. Wouldn't worry too much was my verdict. WRONG. This morning I received a call from daughter. Nurse had come round, looked at the wound, pressed it and cups of foul smelling pus dripped out of it. The nurse went off and returned with more gauze, the exudate was so copious that she had used up all her supplies. G.P immediately contacted the surgeon who requested that SIL return to hospital - by ambulance as now the flow had started it was unstoppable.

Two hours later daughter phoned. He had been seen by the triage nurse and was sitting in a wheelchair, in the corridor waiting to see the docs. The wound was still draining, daughter was having to repeatedly ask nurses for new gauze, and SIL had not been given any analgesia because the Docs hadn't seen him. I was fuming, but effectively ineffective, I was looking after Amy and 15 miles away from the hospital.

An hour later, he had now been there 3 hours, he was seen. Daughter had spent this time mopping up pus from SIL, and from the floor around him. The Docs removed half the staples from his wound, it opened up. It took them an hour to clean inside it, then pack it with special gauze. They have left it open, given him one dose of intravenous antibiotics, told him there were no beds available, sent him home with 3 different types of antibiotics and told him  the nurse will visit daily to re-pack and re-dress it.

When, how and why did the situation become this bad?

7.9.06 22:07