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Queen's Hospital 2024-03-26 Person 0 5 0

I am responding for my husband who is still in hospital.The experience in A&E was horrendous, in fact I would go as far as to say it could kill some older people. It was wall to wall with trolleys in every corridor and the staff were totally overwhelmed. My husband spent a total of 42 hours on a trolley, being 81 years old and having 2 weeks before a TAVI procedure in Barts hospital. He took a fall which is why he was in A&E, and it was not determined that he had multiple rib fractures until he had been on a trolley for 24 hours. No water, no food and no pain meds were offered. He needed to go to the toilet, but after asking numerous nurses for a bottle, but being told he can’t urinate in the corridor, there was no cubicle available to put him in, so he wet himself. He was 20 minutes in his own urine with me telling nurses I would be happy to change him if someone could give me some clean bedding, to no avail. He suffers from prostrate cancer so has to wear incontinence pads and cannot wait for long periods without needing the toilet. By sheer luck 2 paramedics came to our rescue and took him to a room to clean him up. I believe a critical incident was declared on this specific day, but he still had a very long wait on a trolley. I was there with him, but many older people were on their own with no care, it was an absolute disgrace.

The system is broken , the hospital no longer serves the growing population in the area. The hospital is short staffed, so I am not blaming the staff. However a suggestion would be to at least have volunteers to ensure people at least have water or a sandwich or more assistance to help with people who need the toilet but can’t get off the trolleys.