My father has been in hospital since last September. He is now 87 years old and is very frail. Visiting him there, and taking my mother each day to visit, I have, over the last few months seen a snapshot of the workings of the NHS for the elderly. Unfortunately, what I have seen has not been good.
There have been many incidents which have disappointed us including my father contracting a number of conditions with which he did not enter the hospital. An infected toe did not have the dressing changed for well over a week, despite my mother pointing this out on a number of occasions. Another man in the ward was moved out by his family to a private hospital. The nurses had accidentally thrown away his false teeth but had done nothing to replace them. The man was having great difficulty even eating. The stories could go on.
Change in nursing
I mentioned all this to someone in our congregation who trained as a nurse in the late 80s but who is now out of the profession. Her comments were interesting. She explained that when she trained, you only needed five GCSEs to be accepted for the course.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …