Care at St Luke's (2)

Picture this: It is 7.30 p.m. and the beginning of yet another visiting-hour session at St Luke's Hospital. Caring relatives rush to the bed of their loved ones. In the same ward, another patient lies helplessly, watching all the activity around her. It is dinner time and patients begin to savour their evening meal. The elderly patient tries to lift a spoon to her mouth but, being invariably helpless, she fails to bring it close enough.

No one came to the aid of that woman. She might have wanted to taste the evening's offering of chicken soup or boiled cabbage and mashed potatoes - however she was unable to eat and had it not been for a kindly soul who happened to be on the ward visiting her own relative, that patient would have gone hungry and spent yet another night without a satisfying meal.

I do not wish to dwell on the merits or demerits of the hospital's choice of cuisine. However, the lack of sensitivity towards elderly patients in particular prompted me to put pen to paper.

I would like to thank the majority of the hospital's medical and nursing staff for their dedication and devotion to the welfare of their patients. However, I would also like to remind those other members of the hospital staff, who dismiss such occurrences as being simply the order of the day, that they too, in future, might find themselves alone, helpless and uncared for.