NHS Forth Valley: Family say treatment of 94-year-old in FVRH was 'abuse'

NHS Forth Valley has said the family’s litany of complaints “highlighted a number of serious concerns” about his treatment after he was admitted at the beginning of October to the Larbert hospital

The man, who lives in the Falkirk area and who we have agreed not to name, was taken into hospital on October 3 after several falls, where he was diagnosed with low blood pressure and gout. His daughter said: “At the time of entering hospital, he was a normal, elderly man with no major health issues. However, my mother and other people who witnessed my 94 year old father’s mistreatment could only describe it as neglect or abuse.”

The family said they regularly found their loved one sitting in a chair next to an open window wearing only a thin hospital gown and net underwear – this was despite them taking in eight pairs of pyjamas. They also found the patient in the next bed wearing the man’s warm slippers.

His daughter added: “No explanation was ever given for why he was regularly left all day in a state of undress. The tight pants caused welts in his groin area and barely covered him; his stoma bag was on display for all to see. It was extremely distressing for my 90-year-old mother, and other visitors, to arrive at the hospital and find him sitting half naked in an uncomfortable chair, with the room window open, shivering with cold and grimacing with pain. Often his first words were ‘I’m freezing’ or ‘I can’t handle this agony’.”

The family have also complained about staff not bringing bedpans when requested, with his daughter saying: “This old man was robbed of his dignity by having an accident that was completely avoidable if staff had listened to his calls for help. A church minister who visited him commented that this sort of treatment was ‘cruelty’.”

They have also highlighted meals being brought that he hadn’t chosen and no assistance given to help him eat so he was regularly going without food.

His wife pleaded with medics for him to be allowed to come home, “where he could be warm and fed, and treated with some care and dignity”.

Eventually she was told they would send him home the following day on November 17 but the family were surprised when that night the man was moved from Ward A22 to B11. When he failed to return home, his wife phoned the hospital but said no-one seemed to know where he was.

His daughter said when he finally arrived home on the Thursday evening they were all devastated at what they saw. She said: “He was carried into the house on a stretcher, wearing a thin hospital gown in the pouring rain. He was covered in faeces and it turned out he had been lying in his own excrement all day. The men delivered him home, slid him onto the bed and then left, leaving my 90 year old mother to clean up the mess. It was so bad, that she simply had to throw everything he’d been wearing into the bin.

"My father entered hospital as a normal, chatty, humorous and relatively healthy old man. He came home a shadow of his former self - wracked with such pain that he was unable to move his arms and legs, and having lost a great deal of weight. He looked so weak and frail that we could only assume he’d been sent home to die.”

She immediately flew back to Falkirk from her home abroad, believing she would be spending the last day’s with her father. Thankfully, being fed and cared for at home, they have already begun to notice a big difference. The family say the carers who come in daily are wonderful and they are seeing small improvements every day - even though their GP has told them that he may never return to the health and strength he enjoyed before his extended hospital stay.

His daughter added: “We remain perplexed as to why an elderly man would be treated with such lack of care and dignity. People who visited him in the hospital, and others who have seen the photos, are truly shocked at the way he was treated. He himself, now that he is recovering and chatting with people again, uses the word, ‘abuse’ when he describes the way he was treated during his later weeks in the hospital ward.

"We can never undo what what done to him during those final weeks in Forth Valley Royal Hospital, but we can at least tell our story and perhaps help to ensure that no future patient is treated in this inhumane way.”

His wife said: “It was cruelty to treat an old man like this. We asked for him to be allowed to come home, instead of being treated in a way that causes him pain and robs him of dignity in his old age.”

Professor Frances Dodd, NHS Forth Valley’s executive nurse director, said: “The family have highlighted a number of serious concerns regarding care and treatment and we have apologised and offered to meet with them.

“This will enable us to look into all of the issues they have raised and work with them to ensure any changes or improvements required are made as quickly as possible.”