The move was swift, the nurses accepted me onto the ward and, having introduced myself through a veil of tiredness, I settled into my bay of the 6 patient ward room that was to be my new environment for the next month and a half. The ambulance crew, as they wheeled me in, made, in jest, the comment associated with the title of this blog entry. The new hospital I had left, with its polished walls, patient entertainment system and impressive external vista, was suddenly a distant memory as they looked around the corridors and rooms of this older building.
For the benefit of the timeline, this move occurred 4 months after the collision and it was now August. Four months in the previous Primary Care Trust (PCT) care, including a month and a half in Critical Care in a coma, had been challenging enough but my move to the new PCT would herald a further extended stay.
"..many issues and fresh new problems"
It was here, at this new NHS PCT, that I encountered many issues and fresh new problems. Although this was a Trauma ward I was brought to, the managerial staff were not aware of my case history. It seemed that the consultant I was initially transferred to was on holiday during my move and my files were in the possession of his secretary. This caused an initial problem as the ward staff did not know the severity of my condition and, as a result, had not experienced a patient with so many orthopaedic and colorectal injuries combined as I had. As I did not fit into their pre-arranged 'pidgeon hole' for a patient, I was often overlooked and incorrect and, quite often, frustrating assumptions made about my condition.
Making friends with your ward room compatriates is a vital role for a patient with long term injuries. I saw many people come and go, their injuries not holding them back from their normal daily lives and, each time a patient in my ward room was discharged, it brought home the feelings of overwhelming solitude to me. Thoughts flashed across my mind, assumptions like, "Will I ever get out of here?", "Will I ever see our home again?" and "Why can't I go home too?". It used to break my heart when 'friends' I had gotten to know very well in that short space of time left to return to their lives.
"..my left leg was still damaged, my knee having been smashed.."
At this point, my left leg was still damaged, my knee having been smashed, was still needing corrective surgery and rebuilding. Although I had metalwork in my right leg, the wound on the surface was now becoming infected and needing removing. I was still bed bound and unable to walk which made things very difficult. The abcesses in my stomach were still painfully there and restricting every move, but, as I will go into later, a further complication was developing that no-one could have foreseen. My arm, again still with metal reinforcing the joint, was restrictive and uncomfortable.
"..at this time, that I saw it the worst: ... hospital food."
Let me now touch on an issue that has been covered many times before, for it was in this part of the hospital, and at this time, that I saw it the worst: ... hospital food. Now, to me, and I would hope many other people out there would agree, that a nutricious diet in a hospital environment to encourage healing and well being was a vital component of recovery. A person with so many injuries as I had, although my body found it difficult to absorb a great deal due to the physical amount of bowel that I had in operation, having a good wholesome diet of fats, proteins and carbs would be desperately important. Try telling that to a PCT financial board where the monetry cost of actually using the kitchens that exist in a hospital far exceeds the necessity of healthy patients. In my experience at this point in my recovery, the food was extremely dire.
Allow me to paint a mental picture for you. Now, this is a true story, nothing invented and no exaggerations have been emphasised in this retelling:
It was a Sunday. Part of the weekly "choose your meal for the following day" menu was a nice roast dinner; slices of beef with a Yorkshire pudding, gravy, roast potatos and green beans. The mental image of such a meal was very attractive. My opposite bed friend had ordered it the day before for just such a reason. 12:30pm rolled around and the sounds of the senior nurse ordered the healthcare assistants to rally around as the dinners had arrived on the trolleys. As our room was the final room on the ward, we had to wait for the other trays to be distributed to other patients first, but our time soon came around. My friends tray was brought in and set down on his table. I watched his face turn from a happy, expectant and hesitant face to one of surprise, shock and dismay. The corner of his mouth turned up in disgust, his nose scrunched and he translated a look of "What the f*** is this?" to me across the room. At that moment, I began lauging because he proceded to do something incredibly funny: he lifted his whole plate off the tray, with one hand, using nothing but the Yorkshire pudding as the grip. The gravy and food had congealed to the extent that his whole dinner had become an amalgam of cohesive ingredients that had fused themselves to the plate. Clearly an inedible meal!
"..tipped it 90 degrees and the food never moved."
This was one such event that highlights the issue but it wasn't isolated. Again, another dinner and another patient, this time it was a pasta meal. This friend of mine lifted his plate and tipped it 90 degrees and the food never moved.
You see, as in most hospitals now, the PCT's are outsourcing the food, staff, and other duties to external companies. The one such company that had the contract for this Trust has already been documented in a television program that covered the state of food in hospitals, a report that was not too glittering and which I saw when it was televised at a later stage (but I shall talk about that later).
"..(transported) partially cooked from the warehouse where they were made.."
The procedure, at meal times, was to transport the dinners from their conveyor belt construction, partially cooked from the warehouse where they were made which were, in this Trusts case, at least 40 miles away. On arrival to the hospital, those dinners would be unloaded, wheeled to the kitchens that were relatively unoperative and finished off in the kitchens, then kept warm until delivery to the wards. By this time, the result could only have been as I have described above.
It had come to a point where both my wife, and the wife of one of the new patients opposite me, were bringing in additional food for the pair of us. The pannini shop for the visitors always served nice sandwiches and the Oatcake shop down the road made excellent Breakfast boxes. What really made my anger boil was that hospitals, even those newly built, all have kitchens provided but the PCT's don't seem to invest in home cooked meals, opting instead to pay external contractors to fulfil this so vital of duties. When securing the contract with the PCT's, we were told that the managers in charge had eaten items off the patient menus to agree the contracts and ensure that quality was of importance. However, either they were given exceptional meals as a one off just for the contract or they had let their quality 'slide' somewhat, complacent with the contract, but it was the patients that suffered at the expense of their financial decisions.
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