IN THEIR OWN WORDS, ANGUISH OF FAMILIES WHOSE RELATIVES WERE ‘LEFT TO ROT’

■ I STILL suffer nightmares of my mum’s appalling hospital care. She was admitted in July 2021 for pain relief, having suffered from a bad back, and came out four months later crippled and drugged.

They fitted a catheter and left her sitting in an uncomfortable chair with no physio.

Her body shut down because she was just left.

The nurses seemed to stand around and do nothing to help. The healthcare assistants didn’t wash their hands, which is why she caught infections.

Mum ended up with hospitalacquired pneumonia and developed sepsis twice.

She was discharged into a care home, as she was unable to be independent.

She died in January 2022, aged 89. I will never get over the way she was left to rot.

Morag Horsnail, Berwick Upon-Tweed

■ AFTER fracturing her arm in a fall in July, Mum was admitted to hospital for eight weeks.

At 91 she would clean and tidy the house, make her own dinners, look after her own personal hygiene and go up and down stairs to the toilet.

In hospital she was given a catheter, and she has been incontinent and bedbound ever since. She puts on a brave face but has tearfully told me on numerous occasions that she has had enough and wants ‘to go’.

There simply are not enough nurses to give the time and care that the patients deserve.

Name withheld, Nuneaton

■ MY FATHER was admitted to hospital for a bowel operation in early 2020.

Several days later I found Dad crying out for a nurse to take him to the bathroom. I found one but she told me he would have to use a bed pan.

Next time I saw him, he was in nappies, and there was no one to help him get out of bed, and no physio. He left two weeks later incapacitated.

He spent the next year in a wheelchair, having previously done all shopping, cooking and walking the dog by himself.

Dad died in January last year, aged 96 – from MRSA he caught in hospital.

Mardi Gilmour, Buckinghamshire

■ MY 98-year-old mother was independent and living on her own when, on December 15, 2020 she fell, broke her hip and was admitted to hospital. She ended up in isolation after catching Covid on the ward.

When I was eventually allowed to visit I found her in bed in a foetal position. She said the staff were too busy to help her use a bed pan so she was put in a nappy and told to go in that, and they’d change her when they had time.

There wasn’t even anyone to help her clean her teeth.

We managed to get her home with us, but she was bed-ridden, doubly incontinent and with a large bedsore at the base of her spine. She couldn’t hold a spoon, a cup or even a book to read.

Mum passed away in May 2021, six weeks before her 99th birthday, with me at her side. Name withheld,

Oxfordshire

■ IN 2019 my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but he had few symptoms – no shakes, walked a mile-and-a-half each day, drove his car and was independent.

In January 2022 he was hospitalised with a urine infection. He became incontinent because staff put him in nappies and did not take him to the toilet.

He was kept in bed all day and eventually became unable to stand or walk. After five weeks in hospital, he still cannot walk and requires a hoist to get out of bed. We have now had to admit him to a nursing home and I have ‘lost’ my husband.

Marion Cruse, Kent

■ I HAVE multiple sclerosis and was recently admitted to hospital after a fall. For ten days I wasn’t helped to get out of bed, shave or shower. When I came home I was doubly incontinent – it took carers three months to get me back to where I was before hospital.

Anonymous

■ MY 92-year-old mother was admitted to hospital in May for an operation to drain a large haematoma. At the time she was able to walk round the house and take herself to the toilet.

During the month she was in hospital she wasn’t even helped to sit, never mind to get out of bed. She was put into pads and when she asked for a bedpan was told: ‘This isn’t a nursing home.’ She was discharged into a care home in June with no mobility at all. Now she is reliant on 24-hour care.

Anne Savage, Northamptonshire