I have a dear friend whose family back in Britain is dealing with serious medical issues. He’s a bit upset, being as how he can’t be there to help and all.
The story I’ve gotten (several times removed) is that family members are only allowed very restricted visiting hours at the NHS hospital ward where his sibling is. As in, an hour at a time a couple of times a day.
The major problem with this (aside from the emotional issues) is that neither of those hours are during the doctors’ rounds. So doctor talks to the patient that he’s had drugged out of his mind, patient can’t remember what doc said when family arrives during visiting hours, so family has almost no info whatsoever about what’s happening, what treatments are being planned, etc.
Friend and/or Family is maintaining that there’s nothing they can do about this, that’s just how it is there.
Because I can tell you that if it were my spouse in that hospital, all hell would have broken loose by now. But I’ve also known a few people here who would just figure “doctor knows best” and let things go along, too.
So I’m entirely unclear as to whether this is a cultural problem, i.e., I’m just not getting the way Brits do things, or a personal problem, i.e., his family isn’t very good at standing up for themselves.
What say you Brit dopers? Is this a normal situation? Any suggestions for the family on how to resolve this?
*Note: I’m not at all sure which forum this really belongs in, so please move if needed.
The short visiting hours, and the doctor’s rounds not being likely to coincide with them - yes, that’s how it is, but that shouldn’t prevent a dialogue between the doctor and relatives of the patient - it might just have to be properly arranged.
A bit of both, perhaps. After all, doctor’s rounds might not be the best time to have the ward full of visitors. However, family could grab the nearest nurse or whatever, and insist on knowing when they could talk to the doctor, or 'phone the hospital and work out when doctor can be found at the end of a 'phone and not on rounds and point out, politely but firmly, that they do require to have a chat, well, regular chats and updates. I *suppose *there’s always going to be some annoying doctor who prefers to hide away from patients and their families, but that’s humans for you. Your friend’s people must insist on being kept up-to-date with things. We have had a slightly similar “lack of information” issue with my mother recently, but are now delighted at the highly efficient consultant who absolutely does talk to my father and keeps him in the loop and helps arrange for a care home - one of those lovely people who do their job 110%.
A couple of years ago at Christmas, my Mum (n England) had a stroke, and was take to the local hospital. I came over from the US.
As a family member of someone in serious shape, I was allowed to hang around more or less as long as I wanted, as long as I didn’t get in the way. I asked to speak to the Doctor, and the Doctor made time after rounds to talk me through what was happening.
Yup. The family should be able to get all the necessary information from either the nurses, the doctor or the patient’s records.
The short visiting hours are normal - though it’s not usually a single hour at different times of day, it’s more like three or four hours. It depends on the hospital and the individual ward. Some wards allow visitors from 7am to 9pm with only a couple of breaks where visitors are asked to leave.
That’s typical - when someone might be about to die, visiting hours are a lot more relaxed. Most hospitals would also be flexible when someone’s come over from another country so might not get to see their relative much within normal visiting hours.
Is is usual practice to NOT have visiting time during rounds-there simply isn’t time to speak to realtives during the round.
What would normally happen is that either the relatives make an appointment to meet with the consultant looking after the patient at a convenient time for both parties, or that during visiting time they ask to speak to one of the more junior doctors on that team to discuss the situation.
Certainly I would speak to relaives on a regular basis to update them…they just had to ask and be prepared to wait until I had dealt with urgent issues first.
Be aware…sometimes in situations like this an apparent lack of clarity may be because the patient themselves is asking that information not be shared with the family.
Hi
From experience trying to get an appointment with the consultant is often impossible, you have to ‘make do’ with nursing staff and junior doctors. This is problematic for 3 reasons:
Communications between nursing staff and doctors is often poor and they can’t give you the answers you need.
Nursing staff are too busy with their job - they often don’t have time to talk.
Change over time (between staff) occurs during evening visiting hour so you can’t talk to them then either!
I can only really advise that they get as ‘bolshy’ as they can. Keep challenging how things are done until they get the answers they need.
Thanks very much, everyone. A little bit of both, which is what I suspected. That will help a lot if I do get asked for advice later.
I’m way too familiar with the various problems one can have in getting information under these circumstances (here in the US, at any rate). My first thought on hearing the story was to suggest that they needed to politely insist on seeing the doctors.
However, apparently similar suggestions have been met with some sort of “oh but you can’t do that, no one does that sort of thing in England” reply.
I wanted to verify my gut reaction of “BS!” before I actually said anything. I’ll be seeing Friend this weekend, and the subject is likely to come up. Poor guy, it’s killing him to deal with this all long-distance.
irishgirl, yes, that thought had occurred to me. I know that the situation is extremely serious, but I’m not sure if it’s actually terminal or currently life-threatening or anything like that.
Yssy, absolutely. It’s the same way here. Politely “bolshy” is my specialty.
And don’t forget that just now there will be even more restrictions over visiting times due to the flu outbreak. I know some hospitals are restricting hours, and numbers of visitors.
