Hello I’m new to this forum, and to caring in general. I am currently helping a 90 year old lady that I have known for a while. She recently came out of hospital after having major surgery bowel cancer and I’ve naturally fallen into the role of helping her with her housework and accompanying her shopping. However she suffers with Lymphedema which is vastly detrimental to her mobility. She has to wear support stockings and compression bandage wraps as her legs leak clear liquid. And are terribly swollen. Shes been having a district nurse visit once a week to change the dressing and compression wraps however on Wednesday the district nurse told her they wouldn’t be attending anymore to change them as its not their job and this should fall to relatives or friends… Is this right? What should she do? She lives alone and cannot do this herself she can barely get dressed by herself. I don’t think its very fair she shouldn’t be able to get the help she needs with these dressings. I cannot do this for her as i have no experience in this type of thing. Can anyone offer advice. Thanks
Hi Marie … welcome to an extremely quiet forum as I type.
From reading your posting , I would suggest that the lady has been the victim of yet another unsafe hospital discharge ?
The BIBLE on hospital discharges :
Being discharged from hospital - NHS
Best to have a perusal to see if my use of the word UNSAFE is correct in this instance.
Where to go from here ?
I would recommend AGE UK for more than one reason … the main one being that they have clout !
District nurse ?
WRONG … there is NO duty of care imposed on family members / friends to care !
A job for the local Social services to sort out …pronto … in line with the hospital discharge plan.
Let us know how matters progress … link then AGE UK highly recommended.
Thanks for the reply Chris From The Gulag, I really didn’t think it was right. The reason the nurse gave was basically there were people who needed a district nurse more, and they didn’t class dressing her legs as important enough to warrant a nurse once a week for the re-dressing so it something a famiky member or friend could do. Thanks for tips and i will contact Age UK.
Your welcome.
Almost daily do we read of carees literally dumped back into the community by NHS hospitals with no regard for their future welfare !
In many cases , one quess who picks up the pieces ???
I would have thought that’s the very sort of thing the district nurses ought to be doing. Do you know who ordered the district nurses in the first place. I’d suggest she contact her GP. GPs usually coordinate district nurses’ activities. The medics will have a far worse situation to deal with if those legs deteriorate and get infected.