This one is not about me, I've put an update on my status. It's about an old friend I met by chance this morning. I knew his wife was ill, housebound and unable to get about at all. I asked him how she was. "She is at peace now" he said.
His wife, for whom he had cared for seven years, died a little over 2 weeks ago. She had been in a lot of pain and had made it clear she had had enough. Her carers had been superb, he said, no complaints there. But she had hoped to be at rest and in fact she died, at home, with her husband and the carers with her.
So I asked him how he was. "Busy" he said. The funeral took about 10 days to arrange and the Police and the Coroner were involved. He didn't seem to know why except that it had something to do with dying at home. Knowing a little about coroners inquests and the Police I asked if a doctor had called in the days before her death as he would have been able to sign a death certificate. The answer was no, that no GP had seen her for something like 6 weeks before her death.
I was horrified that her GP had not thought it necessary to visit his wife at home, to know how she was and how the carers were coping. Is that how the NHS is now? When my father died he was visited, regularly by the GPs and his medication adjusted with the help of the MacMillan Nurse and others. He died at home and one of the GPs was able to sign his death certificate.
It was inappropriate for me to criticise his GP and I said no more. Though I did talk to him about himself and his family and how he would now cope. "I became self sufficient", he said.
