A nurse has described chaos at Southend Hospital as staff are “left in tears” after leaving patients in “the middle of wards” with “no privacy or dignity” due to a shortage of beds.
The Southend Hospital worker, who asked to remain nameless, has claimed staff feel “powerless and distressed” after seeing patients “dumped on wards” despite no beds being available.
According to the nurse, patients are sent to “non-existent bed spaces” and placed in the centre of a ward in a chair or bed.
She claimed this means the patient is still recorded as being admitted “in a bed,” but “in reality, they are exposed with no privacy.”
In response, the Mid and South Essex NHS Trust has said that in times of high demand, patients can be transferred from the emergency department to a ward where a patient is due to be discharged.
The nurse described one incident where a colleague was “crying because she was so upset at having to dump her patient in the middle of a ward without a bed space.”
She said, “They are left exposed with no privacy in the centre of a ward.
“All the staff are disgusted as it is not safe. But we feel powerless to do anything about it.
“Patients also get distressed over it when they are dumped just in the middle of other beds in a ward. Some are embarrassed and it is upsetting for nurses too.
“I know they don’t have enough beds, but they can’t treat people like this.”
The trust stated the procedure is part of the trust’s full capacity protocol, used by all trusts across the country, allowing hospitals to regulate patient flow during busy periods.
Dena Marshall, interim managing director for Southend Hospital, added: “At times of high demand, patients can be safely moved from a busy Emergency Department (ED) to a ward where a patient is due to be discharged as an extra patient.
“This allows us to continue to offload ambulances and start our patients’ treatment sooner than otherwise would be possible.
“Extra patients receive the same high-quality care as any other patient on the ward, including medication, observations, and food. They are moved into a bed as soon as another patient is discharged.”
This is the price we pay for decades of superiority and ignorance. Up until fairly recently, we in this country still believed that we had the world’s best health service, but in fact, we now have the worst. If we whine too much, our government will privatise it! Hopefully, our new Prime Minister will work this chaos out, but in all fairness, it will be difficult for Keir Starmer to undo 24 years of Tory mess—it’s going to take a long time.
It said that the staff were in tears. What about the patients who are in tears? These hospitals are hell holes because the Conservatives wouldn’t put money into the care of patients, and as for the elderly, they would rather have them die than spend money making them well.
Southend Hospital used to be such a good hospital back in the day, but that was before the Conservatives got control.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 