Hospital aftercare

Benefits, finances and funding
1

Hi all

I have posted previously about my mum and some of the issues I’m having with her. Regardless of what an unrewarding task sorting out her care has been - feel like I’m constantly battling with EVERYONE - social workers, hospitals, care homes etc and of course mum who tells everyone I’ve abandoned her and spent her money I feel I need to make sure she gets the care she should which leads me to my real question this time.

Mum went straight to a care home after a 4 month stay in hospital where she was mostly bed bound unless a nurse had time to walk with her or during my weekly visits. She was walking around happily for a few weeks at the weeks at the care home, glad to have that freedom. Unfortunately she slipped on wet grass and fell and more unfortunately due to osteoporosis broke her hip.

She was quite unwell when she first went to hospital and they weren’t able to operate for a few days as she was too ill and then she was given a replacement hip and she recovered. She stayed at the hospital about 3 weeks. I tried to get in touch with the discharge nurse about what would happen when she was discharged - where she would go - I thought maybe a rehabilitation place where she could get physio. There were never any nurses around to speak to when I visited in the evenings and although I asked the discharge nurse to ring no one ever did until I got a panicky phone call from mum to say she had just been told she was being discharged and didn’t know where to. It turned out they sent her back to the care home.

I’ve now found out she has never had any physiotherapy or anything since being at the care home which I thought she was getting because the care home manager told me they had a nursing team who went in and did that. It now seems that would only have been if she’d been discharged much sooner and what was done at the hospital over the couple of weeks after her hip replacement was considered adequate.

Mums had a few non serious falls since going back as she has tried to walk and also when being transferred between walker/wheel chair to chair. She is no longer able to walk alone although she keeps trying bless her. Who could blamne her. I feel as though they have written her off as never walking independently again which is devastating for her as wandering around was the only thing she really liked to do. She wouldn’t be able to do any exercises on her own as she has MCI and wouldn’t remember the exercises and loses paper with it on.

She has now fallen again and is back in hospital with a fractured hip (not sure yet if its the same one or not as they only did a half hip replacement). It could even be from an older injury from a previous fall as she went into hospital as her head hurt not her hip and was sent back from A&E initially only to be recalled a day later when they looked at the Xray again. Am I being unrealistic in thinking she should have had more help and support ?

Thanks
Jo

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Hi @DaisyJo, I think that you need to speak to the Pals about your concerns and see what they can do while your mum is in but also her discharge. Ask about a package of care which she should have with details about her care. You can play the unsafe discharge card and say unless she gets more support with her mobility then she be back in because of a fail duty of care which they never like being reminded of. Don’t be afraid to keep fighting a argument with the so called professionals, I do and still fighting a broken system. There are other walking aids that might be useful for your mum and suggest to them to try it out with her. Even ask them is there a ground floor place for her and what footwear is suitable for her to wear when walking. Keep asking question even daft ones to get a answer. Think like you are dealing with kids than adults when talking about your mum care as it seems people forget we are adults and humans and not from out of space.
Good luck

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My ultimate solution is to ring the hospital and ask to speak to yhe CEO’s office. When asked why, say it’s highly confidential. You should then talk to the PA. I’ve found them very helpful and twice things changed within an hour. When mum slipped on wet grass and broke her hip, was anyone with her? You may find that there was negligence, why was she on wet grass??? Maybe talk to a solicitor, as there has been a great deal of “resultant damage” which will affect her quality of life forever.

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