How am I, okay I guess..
Dad is still in hospital, since oct 21st he spent one week at home at christmas,
and three days in the new year, the rest he has been in, and not very well,
actually if it wasnt for the terrible chaos of our health service he would not
have been home at all.. I think..

For when they sent him home he was on antibiotics, and struggling to get around,
but it was christmas and bed management wanted him out.
Our vulnerable are not looked after in this country.

I have sat in A and E three times since october and each time was
shocked to see how the ill are treated, cattle would be herded with more
dignity.
What I also see is the overworked, underpaid, and overstressed staff,
are now becoming immune to the hardship, chaos and distress that patients are suffering
and that is apart from the reason that brought them to the emergency department in the
first place.
It is a follow on from the cuts and changes that have been made on staff, and when people are in a job and they feel hard done by, or that no one cares about them, it has a knock on effect on their performance, and the patients are on the receiving end, I dont mean that they are not receiving medical treatment, but you know, the caring is gone, the time to take for people, the hand on the shoulder, the yes I can get that for you and help you, just lie back and rest.
My dad sat on a recliner for 24 hours, he was lucky the woman in front had a hard chair, beside them the man to their left, had the vomiting bug, he had no bed either, no curtain, and 1 sick bag which he usually missed anyway. It was horrible, for him, for us. What a kip this country has become.
This experience I know from talking to people is not a one off one hospital experience.
We need to go back to basics, patient care first, open the wards, pay the nurses and young doctors properly, stop contract cleaning, have line leadership, matrons who have time to check the work has been done, not one guy mopping from ward to bathroom to ward to main floor, with the same mop and bucket.
when you spread to thin, usually it rips apart, how do our government not know that, how does the health service heads not know that.
The same goes for teaching, garda, army our frontline services, less chiefs more indians, stop feathering top brass nests, the roots of the trees are dying.
Look after us people, we are hurting, physically, emotionally, financially,
Ship up guys, this mess is your making, clean it up, fix it, earn the big bucks you have awarded yourselves
we deserve better.

As for my dad, the great man,
he definitely deserves better, will he get it,
I live in hope, always have, but it wears thin sometime,
fingers crossed for him.

M