This time, it’s the depths of medical incompetence.
I have been told that Arrowe Park Hospital’s discharge letter to my GP contained no reference to my heart failure. Why, then, in the face of my protestations that I had been so diagnosed, didn’t my GP contact the hospital to check? Not to do so was staggeringly incompetent, as was sitting on his arse for 8 weeks and ignoring my letters.
But why wasn’t it done? Was there an assumption that I was somehow mistaken, or that I imagined it, or, perhaps, made it all up just for the hell of it? I don’t know but by Christ I intend to find out – assuming I live long enough, which is by no means certain at this moment, as my condition, which has been totally neglected for two months, is deteriorating. As you can see below, just getting through an average day is increasingly difficult.
I have sent a formal complaint to Arrowe Park Hospital, with a request that they dig out the missing information, forward it to my GP, and write back to me confirming that they have done so. Of course, it’s quite possible that the fuck-up is so comprehensive that there is actually no record extant, in which case I would have no doubt, paranoid though it sounds, that it was deliberately mislaid or destroyed, for reason given in the post Hell is Arrowe Park Hospital, and those following.
A letter of complaint is winging its way to my GP’s fax machine as I type – a copy of which follows, not to darken your day but to broadcast the knowledge of what has happened here, and hopefully lessen the possibility of it being swept under the carpet should I die before I get the chance to take legal action over this. As I’m sure you’ll understand, I feel it’s essential that I seek legal advice without delay, while there is still some life left in the legal aid system. This is too dangerously incompetent to ignore:-
Devaney Medical Centre
Balls Road
Oxton
Wirral
March 29 2011
Attn. Dr.
THIS FAX HAS TWO PAGES.
Dear Dr.
I received a telephone call this evening, during which I was told that my discharge letter from APH contains no reference to my heart failure. This beggars belief.
I am also utterly baffled, in the light of my letter of January 31, in which I described what transpired at APH after the heart failure diagnosis in detail, that it occurred to nobody to check this omission with APH. This is, after all, a life-threatening condition, and we both know, from past experience, that APH is somewhat less than infallible.
To enlarge slightly on what I wrote on January 31, four different people, while I was on ward 32, discussed heart failure with me or mentioned it to me – the staff nurse who was clearly horrified at its severity, and said so, and was baffled that I didn’t know about it (I had only a minor fluid retention problem, prior to my admission to APH – now my legs are like Zeppelins); the doctor or pharmacist who tried to give me beta blockers; a different staff nurse, on January 24, who told me I was being prescribed Digoxin (which I never got); and the consultant who agreed to my discharge later that day.
I was discharged early, with the medical team’s agreement and support, partly in protest at the abysmal medical care (drugs were prescribed but didn’t reach the patients – all the patients in my bay of ward 32, not just me), the almost total lack of sleep, day or night, and on one occasion, while taking diuretics to reduce the fluid in my lungs, some lunatic, in the middle of the night, connected me, via my cannula, so I was barely aware, to a litre of i-v saline. By morning my breathing was severely compromised (when it had been improving), and I made them disconnect what was left of the i-v, and get rid of the second litre they had planned which, in my view, I might not have survived, or would at least have been seriously damaged by. I was at that point very seriously ill, with very little breathing capacity – flooding my system with i-v fluids was criminally stupid.
The level of patient care, in that bay of ward 32, not least the bullying and ill-treatment of one old man, by the nursing staff, would have disgraced a Gulag. It was even more disgraceful that only one patient – me – was moved to protest at his treatment. It would not surprise me to learn that he did not survive.
Be aware that I have not been able to sleep in a bed since my second night in hospital – I simply can’t breathe well enough to lie down, and I still have considerable pain in my left lung (from the empyema, presumably). I have to sleep sitting upright on the settee – not that I get much in the way of sleep in that position, but there is no alternative.
I have tried sleeping with my legs elevated – I slept like this every night for over a month, and it made precious little difference. My feet were a little smaller in the mornings, but unless I got dressed and donned my boots before standing up, they quickly assumed their normal, bloated, state.
I can get breathless walking to the bathroom – just a few paces away – hell, I can even get breathless, as I am at this moment, sitting at my computer, typing. This is NOT the breathlessness of COPD, it does not respond to Ventolin, and all I can do is rest until it abates. It feels as if there is a weight on my chest, making it hard to breathe in, and when I do, the breath has little effect. My breathing, in the mornings, is dreadful until some time after my Furosemide kicks in – I can’t be active at any level much before midday.
Cooking – difficult for some years – has become impossible, and for some weeks now I’ve been living on convenience foods – not good as I have no control over salt levels. Cleaning is extremely difficult. It was bad enough before, now it’s almost impossible.
I have had to buy a powerchair to enable me to get around the building, and do things like my laundry, or take out the garbage, and even that’s a challenge at times, because I feel so exhausted.
My legs are enormously swollen and painful, so much so that it’s very difficult, and even more painful, to bend my knees (or to straighten them once bent), I can’t walk any meaningful distance (my life has come down to just my living-room, kitchen and bathroom, except when I have to go out). They are also inflamed and covered in blisters, which seem to be unassociated with heart failure or anything else, but need attention.
My feet are so swollen that often, when I stand, my toes don’t touch the floor – they just stick out of the ends of my feet like so many sausages. Putting on or taking off socks is very painful and very difficult (ditto cutting my toe-nails), as my ankles are so swollen they don’t bend, nor do my toes, and putting on footwear is impossible unless I absolutely have to – my feet have to be forced into my boots, at the cost of a great deal of pain, as my feet are frequently somewhat bigger than my boots. What damage this is causing – fluid doesn’t compress, something has to give to accommodate it – I really don’t want to think about.
I have made a formal, written, complaint to APH, asking that all information relating to my heart failure be sent to you without further delay, and requesting written confirmation that they have done so. However, even if it transpires that they lave lost it, that does NOT mean that I was not diagnosed with heart failure, and it would be a serious error of judgement to make that assumption.
I have asked for a home visit by you, which I said wasn’t urgent – I believe that to have been in error – because I can’t get to the surgery (I have no idea, from one day to the next, what I am going to be physically capable of; on the best of days it’s very little), and I have the symptoms of heart failure I need to show you as the condition needs treatment as a matter of urgency. Ignoring the fact that APH fouled up, heart failure is, I believe, self-evident, and, if evidence from APH fails to materialise, warrants further investigation.
Yours sincerely,
Ronald W Graves.
Trust me, folks, this does not end here.
