We have had an absolutely terrible day today. My husband has catheter which stopped working this morning. I phoned our local community nursing service who for whatever reason didn’t get back to us until late afternoon when we were handed over to the twilight service. I phoned several times during the day and also phoned 111 for help. My husband was in a lot of pain, Eventually two nurses arrived and changed the catheter. My husband managed to get up into his wheelchair and to eat some dinner but fell asleep and I had to wheel him to bed and drag him from his wheelchair into bed. I cannot believe how the day time community nursing service left him. When I complained they said they had tried to phone him but couldn’t get through….what do they do if people who are known to them..on the so called Gold Standard need help but aren’t responding to phone calls for any reason? Our community nursing service is located five minutes away from our home and they didn’t think to come round. They only responded after our care agency phoned them. I am shocked and disappointed. My husband is struggling to stay alive with so many health problems arising from his cancer and they can’t be bothered to help him to be comfortable and not have to deal with the stress and pain of having a catheter problem. So easily fixed.
he is sleeping now and I am doing the mountains of washing sheets, towels, clothes etc that got soaked in urine by the catheter failure.
how are us carers supposed to keep doing what we do with the extremely poor quality care and response from the medical services. How long do we wait before things deteriorate so far they can’t be treated? I am at the end of my tether right now, but will do it all again tomorrow and the next day.
Does macmillan campaign for action from government for more resources to help cancer patients? The current government is so far a huge letdown to us Joe/joanne blogs.
