Thursday 2 July 2015

Despite what it says it your care plan ... (Bradgate Unit/ J's care update)

Quick update. After several days, nearly a week, at the Leics Royal Infirmary for a nasty painful bout of cellulitis in one leg J has returned to the familiar territory of H ward. In order to get her treated and keep her at the LRI, the Bradgate (MH unit) staff had repeatedly promised her that her room wouldn’t be given away and yet when she returned tonight it had been given to a new admission. We’d all been working hard through the week to keep her calm. Apparently the room had be held until yesterday (which is actually really impressive, because in an acute care unit you usually have to be very Buddhist about not getting attached to anything). This involved moving her things out of the room and possibly into storage and then out again to the new room (without her knowledge), and it looks like another patient has been moved off the ward. Stepping right back, I’m glad that she’s still at H ward with familiar staff, but it’s the way we weren’t given warning in which to prepare J. In fact, quite the hospital, a nurse had said the room was still safe/secure. It’s still so much better than other wards, she could have been placed in a dorm or discharged, but this was triggering for her today. It’s sort of an OCD thing, as well as her anxiety needed to be assuaged by visually events before they occur. It’s peppered through her care plan that she mustn’t be moved. I know it sounds unreasonable, but it would have better for her if we’d all been kept informed, so as to prepare for change.
(Welcome back to your short term therapeutic home of stability, oh, by the way we’ve moved you up the road.)
It’s super hot at the moment in the UK, and everywhere airconditioning seems to be broken. In the new room she says she can’t slide the window open (there’s a thick inner mesh for security, at least these windows open) because it backs onto where patients smoke in the garden. I know these are little things but when you don’t feel in control of anything it’s all the little things which trigger. 
Like I said, I’m relieved that she’s still on the same ward. Continuity always seems like such a luxury. Transition is bad for J at the best of times.

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