Hospital failure

I’M A retired nurse and I totally agree with Dr Adrian Boyle’s comments about elderly people in hospital.

My father was a fit, healthy 89-year- old, living independently in warden apartments, when he had a fall. Although he was only badly bruised, he was admitted to hospital, as he was on the anticoagulant drug warfarin.

It was the weekend, so he spent two days in a ward for overflow patients before being moved to a rehabilitation ward to ensure he wasn’t at risk of further falls.

While he was there, waiting for a home care package to be put in place, he picked up C. diff, a bowel infection.

That led to him developing bed sores, as the rehab ward had too few staff to manage the patients with medical needs and there were no beds available on the isolation ward. My father went into hospital on May 5 and was finally discharged on November 12, bed-bound and still with C. diff. He died on November 20.

The system is not working. PauLine Hoey, Bromborough, wirral.