25 May - Care, crime and cream

Another Press Release
Bexley Council issued another Press Release last week - aimed at me possibly.

It is entitled ‘Are you a Bexley Carer?’ and offers to provide useful information on the borough’s care services. I think I will subscribe to their newsletters, I may learn more about how to deal with Newham Council.

Incidentally they reneged on their offer to fund respite care for four weeks but as we only took advantage of it for five nights I am too tired to argue.

Another break in
I was asked to go and look at an attempted break in last week, not the sort of thing I usually do but it was in my own road.

When I moved to a house opposite Lesnes Abbey in May 1987 I discovered that the area was a hotbed of crime, My windows had a brick through them when I had only been here for three days. A couple of months later my fence was burned down in the middle of the night. I was woken by the noise of a fire engine parked on my front drive and the police refused to investigate the woman standing 50 yards away with a petrol can in her hand.

Burglars hopping over the railway line from Thamesmead was a regular event and it was an easy escape route that no one dared to follow.

Then it all quietened down and been reasonably peaceful ever since.

The latest evidence of a break in looked a little odd to me, it seemed like the damage an over-enthusiastic squirrel might cause. If it was an attack by a would-be burglar why use a chisel when a club hammer on the glass might be more effective?

I was later informed that it was the work of a maintenance man looking for wood rot but he hadn’t bothered to warn any resident.

While there I was reminded of how close to house windows the trains run. No privacy, no sound deflection.

It wasn’t always like that but Network Rail removed the conifers in 2015 and took away the residents’ own larch lap fence and replaced it with a cheap chain link affair which offers no protection at all.

There were complaints but Network Rail simply ignored the protests.

63 Belvedere Road
Bexley Council bought the bungalow at 63 Belvedere Road last year; it is right next door to the entrance to the Council Leader’s own private park and the suspicion was that if it were to be demolished the park would become a nice little building site for BexleyCo.

The suspicions were allayed just a little when the entrance was slightly modified last January but someone living close by who takes a keen interest on developments there says he has seen absolutely no sign of occupation.

Maybe there are reasons for longer term concerns after all.

Milkshakes
For reasons best known to themselves, milkshakes have become the weapon of choice for the politically illiterate. It seemed to me that the throwers were entirely comprised of the sort of morons who are too often attracted to the Labour Party. That is not intended to be a criticism of the Labour Party which attracts a lot of good people, it is more commiseration than complaint. I doubt the level headed majority approve of throwing anything at politicians, they certainly didn’t when Jeremy Corbyn was egged.

I follow all shades of political opinion on Twitter because it is too easy to live in a Social Media bubble but when the follower who causes my eyebrows to shoot upwards almost every day suggested crowd funding the Farage milkshake thrower’s legal expenses after he was charged with common assault I said something about it.

I shouldn’t have lowered myself to a debate with a supporter of a criminal but something tipped me over the edge. He didn’t seem to get the fact that aiders and abetters of crime are very little better than the criminals themselves and he demanded an apology for me eventually concluding he was dim. To please him I apologised for participating in a Twitter spat but my views haven’t changed one jot.

To prevent a recurrence I stopped following the two Labour supporters who are the worst offenders and perhaps an embarrassment to their party.

I was pleased to see that Thamesmead East Councillor Danny Hackett was on my side, he knows all about being attacked by the extreme left. Just the one attack for being on the side of the law abiding was enough for me; I’m not sure how Danny survived the onslaught on him.

 

8 May - It’s Desperation Day plus one in Newham

So here I am in East Ham trying to write a blog using Notepad while on 24/7 care duties with little by way of food and being coeliac can't easily order it in. Do I really want fifty quid’s worth of gluten free bread from Tescos?

A senior medic who may share my opinion of Newham General Hospital managed to get one ball rolling yesterday morning and the first Social Worker to be seen since this episode began a month ago showed up at my aunt's house. I arrived there just in time.

My opinion of Social Workers has not always been high but this chap, Jude, was good. Maybe it’s because he agreed absolutely with my criticisms of Newham Hospital and he lives in Abbey Wood.

He could barely believe what he was reading in the hospital notes; as far as I could tell their complete failure to follow through their own promises is on the record and a damning indictment of the competence of Dr. Charlotte Pratt (GMC Number 3083318) et al.

But apparently Social Services and the NHS don’t speak to each other in Newham and whilst my aunt should have been sent for re-enablement (NHS I believe) the NHS is unembarrassed by their failure to make any preparations for discharge. Not just the obvious like no physiotherapists but they even forgot the medication pack. Nevertheless they remain intransigent and refuse any retrospective action. The best the man from Abbey Wood could offer was a respite home which could be anywhere but he recognised that speed was of the essence. Later today maybe.

With my sister now at home she can get on with arranging a longer term care home.

As ill luck would have it my aunt still has the constipation she had when discharged - one more reason she was not fit to be sent out - and there are signs that a powerful laxative (Laxido) which was in the hospital medical pack when it eventually arrived is beginning to have some effect. Up and down to the loo all night. I have not had to clean that sort of mess since my son was in nappies 47 years ago.

If the Social Worker does not get my aunt a place somewhere today it is definitely a taxi to A&E.

Me a dumper of old ladies? But what else is left to do? The Social Worker said that all the things my sister and I have done and have still to do should have been done for us or helped with before discharge. The NHS is simply not fit for purpose.

 

Related blogs
25 April 2019. • 27 April 2019. • 29 April 2019. • 2 May 2019. • 3 May 2019 1st part. • 3 May 2019 2nd part. • 6 May 2019 1st part. • 6 May 2019 2nd part. • 7 May 2019. • 8 May 2019. • 9 May 2019. • 10 May 2019. • 11 May 2019. • 18 May 2019.
The Omnibus Edition.

 

2 May - The state of the National Health Service today

It’s a day to drop everything and rush over to East Ham again. I must come to an arrangement with the care company to see if they can increase cover further, my sister cannot be expected to be on 24/7 care watch for ever. I suspect that we cannot go on much longer without engaging a full time care home despite my aunt’s insistence that she wants to be in the home where she has been since being bombed in Victoria Dock Road in 1941.

There has been some progress towards mitigating Newham Hospital’s total failure to prepare for the discharge of a frail old lady just a month short of her 99th birthday. The District Nurse who declared the incident a failed discharge has been visiting since last Monday and dealt with the bedsores. Not so good is that some of the supplied syringes will be past their expiry date before they are due to be used.

Yesterday a Physiotherapist came for the first time and said that my aunt should not be at home on weekly physiotherapy but in a rehab. centre for daily attention. He said he would make an urgent application but had no idea if space would be available.

Also yesterday a commode was delivered (a day later than promised) but there has been no contact with Social Services. I regard that as a good thing. They were no help back in 2015 after my aunt had been in hospital and rehab. for nine weeks.

The General Practitioner also declared Newham Hospital’s discharge to be “failed” and he is so concerned by the last week’s events that he is going to raise it with the Clinical Commissioning Group.

Everyone the District Nurse and I have persuaded to take an interest in the situation have been very nice people who have done their best to mitigate Newham Hospital’s failure to make any arrangements at all.

The ward Sister - the one in dark blue - assured me that all the professionals in her hospital had passed my aunt, who was constipated and catheterised until discharge and required lifting from bed to chair, fit for return home. Is Dr. Charlotte Pratt (GMC Number 3083318) who signs off geriatric discharges still in employment?

My big mistake was allowing my sister to reach a compromise date for discharge with the ward staff. They wanted her discharge to be eleven days after the leg break was repaired and 13 days was agreed. We should have just walked away.

 

Related blogs
25 April 2019. • 27 April 2019. • 29 April 2019. • 2 May 2019. • 3 May 2019 1st part. • 3 May 2019 2nd part. • 6 May 2019 1st part. • 6 May 2019 2nd part. • 7 May 2019. • 8 May 2019. • 9 May 2019. • 10 May 2019. • 11 May 2019. • 18 May 2019.
The Omnibus Edition.