Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Barnacle]

My mum's neighbour is a nurse in a care home which is mainly for dementia residents  When my mum spoke to her Friday she was in tears, as that morning two of their residents had been returned from our local hospital after both being tested positive.

It's just too sad!

[CLKD]

Another sign that our wrinkles do not get the respect from our Government that they deserve ---------- we are all being told to distance! and Nightingales were set up to take C-19 sufferers.  To relief the stress on the NHS.  Don't read Links they get changed on a daily basis.

By sending patients 'back' from Hospital, regardless of why they were sent initially, leaves everyone at risk: Nursing Staff, Ambulance personnel, Carers, residents    ........

Why should people stay away from A&E .......... it's there for us all. Most of us have paid for it!  One hospital has two entrances: 1 for patients and others for those with C-19 symptoms.    Good idea I reckon, should remain - one for small problems another entrance for Emergencies by Ambulance. 

[Pennyfarthing]

NO ONE has said they wished the Nightingales were full for goodness sake 

I'll repeat  - and concur with CLKD  - it just seems common sense to me to treat COVID patients in the Nightingales which are set up specifically with ventilators etc and free up at least some, if not all, of the regular hospitals to treat all other urgent cases (and give patients a better chance of not contracting the virus whilst they're in there).

The NHS is itself admitting they're worried about the lack of emergency admissions. Heart attacks, strokes and other emergencies aren't just going to stop are they? Life saving ops need to be carried out and urgent treatments resumed. An elderly woman failed to dial 999 when she fell because she didn't want to trouble them - and was found to have had a broken hip for 7 days!

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/04/17/care-homes-and-covid19/

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/04/21/the-anti-lockdown-strategy/

These two links show, from a GPs point of view, how the systems is not working as it should.  It seems to me that more Care Home patients should be being dealt with by the Nightingales, as they have this excess capacity.

So now we have leapt from Nightingale Hospitals to Care homes?

Do you honestly think that very elderly people most of whom have multiple health issues and often dementia could cope with being transported hundreds of miles to Nightingale hospitals?  I know for sure my Mum couldn't neither could any of the residents on her corridor which is why we have all said that we prefer our parents to be kept in the care home than taken to hospital. We had a choice and our wishes will be respected. 

Can you imagine  a 96 year old with dementia travelling alone hundreds of miles and ending up in a hangar sized building with nothing familiar around them and knowing not a soul?   You haven't thought this through have you? 

[Pennyfarthing]

Another sign that our wrinkles do not get the respect from our Government that they deserve ---------- we are all being told to distance! and Nightingales were set up to take C-19 sufferers.  To relief the stress on the NHS.  Don't read Links they get changed on a daily basis.

By sending patients 'back' from Hospital, regardless of why they were sent initially, leaves everyone at risk: Nursing Staff, Ambulance personnel, Carers, residents    ........

Why should people stay away from A&E .......... it's there for us all. Most of us have paid for it!  One hospital has two entrances: 1 for patients and others for those with C-19 symptoms.    Good idea I reckon, should remain - one for small problems another entrance for Emergencies by Ambulance.

Nobody is suggesting people should stay away from A and E.  It is people CHOOSING to do so themselves because they don't want to be a burden on the NHS.  Whether that's right or wrong, it's their choice.

[CLKD]

They were built for C-19 cases.  To keep the rest of the service healthy.  Why should anyone be returned to a care home putting others at risk? I am waiting for a reply to my e-mail to the Manager on Tuesday asking that very question, are the residents isolated appropriately on their return to the Care Home? 

No one is alone when travelling between Hospital to where ever ........... there are Staff!

People are making the choice on what they have been led to believe.  That the A&E/NHS is no longer available to the public.  Because there aren't any Staff who are apparently involved with C-19 cases and because they fear carrying the Virus back to their families.  Well, that's according to 2 relatives on TV yesterday  whether those will be recorded as a result of C-19 or not remains to be seen. Or will they be the forgotten victims?

[Pennyfarthing]

The dementia homes have the particular problem of wandering residents to deal with.

My sis was telling me about her FIL yesterday. He's a 'wanderer' and won't stay in his own room - in fact he's managed to get out of the building twice with his bag packed in the last week despite lockdown!

Possibly, being told to stay in his room is making him super-stressed - hence wanting to escape.

Care home staff must be pulling their hair out. And the reality is the majority are minimum wage carers NOT medically trained people.

But many, like my Mum, have such poor mobility they are unable to wander anywhere.  Not one on Mum's corridor would be capable of escaping. Two are in wheelchairs and the rest use frames and move very slowly.

Sad as it may seem, your SIL's father probably needs to be on a locked ward for his own safety.  My husband's 94 year old auntie With the start of dementia went into a care home at Xmas and they have now contacted the family and said they need to move her to a locked ward as she is too 'difficult? for them to cope with on an open ward now.

[Pennyfarthing]

They were built for C-19 cases.  To keep the rest of the service healthy.  Why should anyone be returned to a care home putting others at risk? I am waiting for a reply to my e-mail to the Manager on Tuesday asking that very question, are the residents isolated appropriately on their return to the Care Home? 

No one is alone when travelling between Hospital to where ever ........... there are Staff!

People are making the choice on what they have been led to believe.  That the A&E/NHS is no longer available to the public.  Because there aren't any Staff who are apparently involved with C-19 cases and because they fear carrying the Virus back to their families.  Well, that's according to 2 relatives on TV yesterday  whether those will be recorded as a result of C-19 or not remains to be seen. Or will they be the forgotten victims?

1.  They were built to take the pressure off the main hospitals IF they couldn't cope.

2.  We all obviously know there will be a driver and an assistant on board an ambulance but the patient doesn't know them and their job is just to transport them and ends when they drop them off.

3.  This business of people choosing not to go to A and E has gone on for years, particularly in the older generation.  I am sure we have all heard older people becoming very ill and saying ?I didn't like to bother the doctor.? 

[CLKD]

Care Homes are not allowed to lock residents in.  The discussion has to go before a group of people, as restricting someone's liberty is a huge problem.  Even to keep someone safe.  All the outer doors at Mum's home are locked and have to be let in/out ........ people also become restless due to medication side effects.

[Sparrow]

Exactly.

[Pennyfarthing]

Care Homes are not allowed to lock residents in.  The discussion has to go before a group of people, as restricting someone's liberty is a huge problem.  Even to keep someone safe.  All the outer doors at Mum's home are locked and have to be let in/out ........ people also become restless due to medication side effects.

What are you talking about? You are completely wrong. 

I visited 14 care/nursing homes the other summer and many of them had locked wards. Wards not rooms!   Several of the newer homes have different landings depending on how affected by dementia people are.   The people who are physically able but have severe dementia are usually living on the top floors which are locked so they cannot be a danger to themselves or others.

If you are talking about very small, private care homes which are not set up for people with dementia then obviously they won't have the space to have locked wards so they will try to get people moved to more secure homes as they can't manage them.

[CLKD]

Do read my new thread.   My cousin had to go to a meeting when my Uncle went into care as he needed to be kept safe.  About 5 people sat to discuss Uncle's needs and which methods were appropriate.

To keep anyone in a closed Ward it has to go to discussion.  How would you know how these people are kept safe by being under lock and key 24/7 without reading their cases? 

No one is allowed to lock anyone in. 

[CLKD]

By Michele Paduano, Midlands health correspondent, BBC News

Unlike the Excel in London, the Birmingham's Nightingale hospital was always devised as a step down facility, so it would accept patients who had recovered sufficiently from coronavirus or who were not suitable for ventilation.

Fortunately, although the number of coronavirus cases have been significant, social isolating is working, and the NEC has not been required for this purpose.

Trusts who have also had up to 20% of their staff off self-isolating or sick have not wanted to second employees to the new facility because their rotas are already stressed.

The Birmingham Nightingale is expected to be in use for 12-18 months and may be called upon if there were a second greater surge.


More than 400 civilian contractors, along with military personnel and about 500 clinical staff, were involved in building the temporary field hospital, which took eight days to build.

Dr Rosser said the trust was "hugely proud of getting it up and running but we're also paradoxically proud of the fact that we didn't need to use it".

[Pennyfarthing]

Do you think they are locked in their rooms ?
I also visited many homes in the search for good ones. 
The one I chose was a nursing home with various levels of care. Downstairs was for those who had nursing needs, but possibly more care needs. My mother was on this level initially. As her dementia increased she was moved to a more secure unit upstairs. She was free to walk , as she did endlessly. But the floor was accessed by a lift. You needed a code. The outer doors needed a code also.
This is common practice really... How else would you expect the nursing home residents be kept safe?
I'm a bit confused really.

You?re wasting your breath Diane!  You can tell some people till you?re blue in the face but they will never admit they are wrong.   

 I have worked with older people for nearly 20 years and visited many in such homes and for some people they have to be on locked wards for their own safety.  I went to visit a former neighbour last summer and she is in a large home, on the top floor and is unable to leave the floor unaccompanied as are all the other residents up there.

The ones I visited made me feel uncomfortable as I am claustrophobic But they are necessary And as Diane said they can wander the corridors but they are just not safe to go out.

[CLKD]

Tnx Diane200.

[Pennyfarthing]

Tnx Diane200.

So you are thanking Diane for telling you you are wrong?

There are wards, corridors or areas in care or nursing homes for dementia patients which are secure, locked, keycoded whatever you like to call them where it would be unsafe to allow people to come and go as they please.  I have seen them with my own eyes.  as has my husband. As part of his work he visits countless care homes and the staff always tell him to make sure he shields the keypad when he is leaving as residents will be out of there like a shot if they read the code.

The care home my husbands aunt is in cannot cope with what they call her 'difficult? behaviour on the main floor so want the family to agree to her moving to the ?locked? ward upstairs.  She has been climbing on tables and trying to get out of windows which fortunately are fixed to open only about 3?. 

it's not nice knowing that a loved one is living like this and it did unsettle me (as I am claustrophobic) when I saw such places but they are unfortunately necessary for some people.