Away from public healthcare and things get better.

I think that it is a damning indictment of the public health system when as soon as someone goes private, they get the treatment that they need and immediately begin to show signs of getting better.

In sheer frustration at the appalling after care being offered by the John Radcliffe Hospital, we have moved my Granddad to a private hospital. I don't particularly agree with private healthcare, after all that's partly what I pay taxes for - not to have to pay again when healthcare is needed. And god knows my Granddad has paid more than enough tax in his time! Yet, within 24 hours of moving him, he is now eating and starting to show improvement.

So what is the miracle cure that suddenly achieves this? TIME. plain and simple. The staff in his new hospital are in sufficiently high numbers that they do not have to rush around manically, they can take the time to make sure that he is eating. He got to see a physiotherapist within the first day, something that took 4 days in the JR! Also, the staff at the new hospital are capable of understanding and communicating with him because the standard of English is that much better. There are still plenty of overseas staff working there but the standard is so much higher. One member of the staff at the JR couldn't even speak enough english to get his name right and hold a basic conversation about the level of discomfort that he was in.

So is this a lifeline that I have been praying for? this is the important thing. I don't know what to think. I want to believe that things can get back to normal but it would be so cruel to pin everything on this only to fond that things don't work out.

Cautious optimism, I think, is perhaps the way to go. but thankful none the less.

Things Aren't Getting Any Better

So a few days further down the line and what once looked like the strong beginning of my Granddads recovery is now looking like it may just be playing for time. I have to say that he looks to be slipping down hill pretty fast and, whilst I know that family and friends are making every effort possible, that is more than I can say for the hospital that he is at.

I will name and shame without compunction; The John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, may be one of the best hospitals in the country for clinical excellence but the nursing standards on the wards are diabolical. They do not make sure the patients eat - and if they do not they take no action. The level of care is poor, slow and at best, reactionary. There are very few nurses, and even fewer that speak English to a decent standard. Hygiene is questionable - on the occasions that I have been visiting, there have been nurses and doctors doing the rounds. Despite them all carrying hand gel with them, I haven't once seen any of them use it, even after directly treating patients with infections. There seems to be absolutely no will to treat patients as human beings with the need to interact with those around them, they simply view them as beds to be freed up and numbers to be pushed around on paper.

So that said and done, this is not helping - or asking for help - for a resolution to the situation. this all seems such a mess and the outcome does not look too rosy right now. I am sacred that we are loosing him, little by little. And the process for getting it sorted out and him into a private specialist hospital is so slow that the fear is that it may be too far down the slippery slope to begin a way back.