NHS: New Horror Story
A story untold for 12 years. A story that has created a lifetime of injury. This is the story of my mother.
Twelve years ago my mother, a healthy 49 year old women awoke unable to move. She was completely paralyzed and in great pain on her left side. She woke my father in panic. My father managed to get my mother into a car with great struggle and took her to the NHS RB Hospital.
This was a mistake.
When they arrived my mother waited in the A&E waiting room for 4 hours before she was called in to the doctor. She was told she was being put onto a ward before anyone could examine her. She was informed this was because no one could stay in the waiting room for 4 hours without being triaged.
In the ward my mother was informed by the doctor they would give her an MRI scan the next day to find out what was wrong. Throughout all these events my mother was in complete agony and she had yet to be given anything for the pain. This was because they refused to give her medication as they didn’t know what was wrong with her.
It wasn’t until the third day of her stay in the ward that they finally performed the MRI scan. The results according to the NHS doctor showed nothing wrong with my mother. So they took her to a Geriatric ward and left her there for 5 days with just paracetamol without treatment.
My father contacted their insurance company to arrange for my mother to be moved to a private hospital. This was meant to happen the next day but the doctor in charge of my mother's case refused to discharge her, unless she could walk down then up 24 steps unassisted without medication.
My mother at this point was still in agony even with the pain relief and was still paralyzed from when she woke up 8 days before. My mother knew that if she wanted treatment she had to get up those steps, otherwise in the doctors words they would keep her “indefinitely without treatment”.
In this time my mother developed ‘drop foot’ which is a common symptom of paralyzed limb, neither the nurses or the doctor recognized this symptom.
So for the next three weeks every single day, my mother learnt how to walk with physio whilst paralyzed and in total agony. In the end she managed triumph over her pain and made it to the top of the stairs, the nurses overseeing this cheered and clapped for her as they knew what this meant for her. Finally on the last week since waking up paralyzed she was free of the RBH.
Or so she thought.
On her way back to the ward in a wheelchair my mother was starving and in pain as she had no food that morning and no medication either to affect the tests. She, however, was told to have a shower after the doctor discharged her. The nurses wheeled her into a shower closed the curtain took my mother's clothes and left saying someone would be back soon to take her back to the ward. She showered on a stool and then waited for someone to come to get her, no one arrived.
After a while of waiting my mother heard someone come in to the bathroom, it wasn’t a nurse as expected, the person brushed their teeth at the sink. From behind the shower curtain my mother asked the person to get someone to help her out of the shower, she was surprised when a male voice responded asking what was she doing in the male's bathroom. My mother said that some nurses had left her in the shower, and asked him again, if he could get someone. So he left, and after waiting a longer period another person came in to the bathroom and did the same as the first visitor, asking for help again the second man left. After a further 20 minutes, neither of the men had returned with anyone to help my mother, she slid off the stool and crawled along the floor to the wheelchair the nurses had left across the room. She dragged herself up onto the chair and grabbed a towel from nearby to wrap around herself as the nurses had taken her clothes with them when they left.
In agony, dripping wet and cold, she then wheeled herself out of the room where she saw a janitor. In near hysteria, which would have made for a concerning image for the janitor to see, as an almost naked woman wheeled herself out of the male's bathroom crying in agony and obvious distress. In choking tears she communicated with the janitor, after explaining how she got there and that she will report him if he doesn’t get help as she had seen his name badge. He rushed off to get assistance and returned saying some nurses were coming and he stayed with her until they arrived.
Once the nurses had arrived they took her back to her ward, only to find a new patient now occupying her bed, and her clothes and belongings in the corridor outside on a trolley as if discarded.
After gathering her belongings and being forced to change in the corridor with no privacy and with the constant traffic of people in the ward, she was finally changed and a porter wheeled her to the discharge suite.
At the discharge suite my mother asked the nurse to contact my father to collect her. She was told very abruptly that it “wasn’t her responsibility to do so, and that she should have arranged it from the ward before leaving!” My mother asked to use one of their two phones which she could see on the desk, she was told the nearest public phone was approximately 3/4 miles away and she couldn’t use a hospital phone as she had already been discharged by the doctor. Luckily an elderly gentleman standing nearby waiting for his wife with his son told my mother she could use his phone. Which she did, only to discover my father was in London and would take two hours to come to pick her up due to the distance. So my mother was made to wait in agony and hunger due to not having eaten all morning.
The nurse bought out a basket of food and offered it to the gentleman and his son, my mother asked if she could have something to eat, the nurse refused, saying that she couldn’t, because “she has been discharged and is no longer a patient of this hospital”. Luckily again the man offered my mother his sandwich to which the nurse interrupted him, saying, “you can’t give her that, she may have an allergy”, to which the man asked my mother, “are you allergic to this sandwich?” my mother, could only shake her head as she began crying again, she took small bites hardly chewing the sandwich as the man looked the nurse in the eye and said “that’s good enough for me”.
My mother then waited for three hours without any medication, comfort or dignity. This neglect was due to the nurse refusing to take responsibility for an outpatient.
My father finally arrived and my mother’s first request was to be wheeled to the toilet which happened to be the gents! This was quickly followed by my father collecting prescribed medication from the pharmacy. This was the last time my mother was detained by the NHS. She was quickly seen in the private hospital.
Within 24 hours she had been examined and the doctor discovered that my mother had her sciatic nerve trapped in the spinal column between two prolapsed discs.
Within 48 hours she had a major operation.
Within 72 hours my mother could walk again.
11 years later my mother can walk without assistance, but she still can’t feel her left leg to this day.
She has one main vivid memory of the whole experience. The nurses cheering and clapping for her achievement of walking up the stairs. She has now returned this applause to the NHS for all they have done and continue to do through Covid 19.
