My husband has been diagnosed with inoperable gastrooesophageal junction cancer. Not on major organs but in the outer intestinal lining and lymph nodes. He is unable to tolerate anything orally and has had an NJ tube inserted 6 weeks and has osmalite overnight for 15hours at home. He started chemo last week but the care doe and advice for the NJ has been really difficult. He was told to go to A/E out of hours - the first time it blocked on a Saturday evening - none of the nurses understood the difference between and Nj and NG - luckily I’m a nurse and had to explain to them. It couldn’t be unblocked and we had to wait until Monday for the nutrition team. We were still in A/E at 3am and eventually went home as no sign of a bed and he was shattered.
Today the NJ has moved and following advice from the upper GI team went to A/E - he sat there in the midst of infections, uncomfortable for 8 hours and nobody from gastric came to see him. They couldn’t get him a bed or even a recliner chair and the gastro team apart from Emergencies finished at 6pm. We now have to return to A/E tomorrow morning when he will be 24 hours no fluids - seems to be that he needs to be dehydrated and near collapse before he gets admitted. I can’t believe there isn’t a better system or plan for issues with NJ tubes
