Heartache at the hospital

I've been following the recent, tragic story of poor Mrs Kathleen Mobbs of Dawley. Frail and elderly, Mrs Mobbs was admitted to Telford's Princess Royal Hospital as an emergency, yet waited seven hours for a doctor to assess her.

She died from undiagnosed cancer.

Events took an even more worrying turn as five concerned nurses risked their jobs, giving damning evidence at her inquest.

They admitted they were struggling to deal with ever-increasing numbers of emergency patients yet ever-decreasing resources and manpower.

And with each news report on the spiralling situation, I've had to bite my tongue a little harder, because I've just had my own unpleasant experience of how wrong things are going in our hospitals.

Mine happened in the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, another under the care of chief executive Mr Tom Taylor. I'd like to bet that given a chance to speak freely, RSH staff would describe the same chronic problems throughout their hospital too.

Rheumatoid Arthritis ensures I spend much of the year in and out of hospital, and this year's been no exception. In spring I was on a ward at RSH being treated for a dislocated hip (my speciality) and some infected, RA-related wounds on my hands.

Late one night I was transferred onto another ward. Wheeling me into the lift, the porter explained that Accident and Emergency staff desperately needed to admit a patient but there were no beds. I had been shuffled.

Fine, I thought, a change of scenery, barely noticing the posters, stuck on the ward doors.

But when I overheard a nurse, asking the patient in the bed opposite for a sample so she could be isolated in case of infection, I started to worry.

And rightly so as it turned out the whole ward was, in fact, shut to new admissions due to an outbreak of Norovirus, the sickness and diarrhoea superbug. Not so firmly shut, though, that management couldn't try to squeeze another patient in, and to hell with the consequences…

And they could have been dire. I'm immuno-suppressed, meaning not only is my immune system compromised by my condition but also by the toxic drugs I'm prescribed in a bid to control it. The upshot is, I'm virtually defenceless in the face of infection.

Had I caught Norovirus, an easy recovery would have been far from guaranteed – infection is the monster that chases me through my worst nightmares.

Luckily, I'm not half as careless with my health as RSH management appear to be, and discharged myself, at 1am. Ward staff tried to find me another bed on another ward, but by then I'd been exposed to a highly infectious superbug, and none would have me.

If only managers were half as conscientious as their nurses, maybe we'd stop hearing of disasters like the bitter end poor Mrs Mobbs suffered, and disasters-waiting-to-happen like being knowingly exposed to a hospital superbug by the very people entrusted with my health care.

• Tom Taylor, chief executive of The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: “Ms Suddaby has contacted the Trust about the issues raised in the article. Following an investigation of her concerns, I have written to her to apologise that the arrangements for her transfer were not fully explained to her beforehand. Our Infection Control Team has confirmed that whilst there was a diarrhoea and vomiting bug in other parts of the ward, this was not the case in the annexe to which she was transferred. As mentioned, this should have been discussed fully with Ms Suddaby before any decision was made to transfer her, and this should only be done with the patient’s full knowledge and co-operation. I would like to take this opportunity once again to apologise that this did not take place, and reassure her that we use all feedback from patients to continue to improve policies and procedures in our hospitals.”