My answer to Are doctors indifferent towards people's pain?
Answer by Desmond Last:
I can only answer this question with the experience of looking after my mother who is 87 years old.
This is what my mum has had to endure for the last 18–24 months. My mum is today in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. She is there because she has not been treated correctly for over 18 months.
On three separate occasions they have changed mum's prescription incorrectly and we have had to call emergency 999 each time. They have misdiagnosed her condition on several other times and that has also meant calling emergency 999.
Each time mum has got weaker and weaker. It has been almost a slow murder and a painful one.
Two days ago she was left in the Accident and Emergency corridor for 7 hours and ended up with a serious infection.
Now she is very weak and is not able to walk – she needs proper long-term convalescing. My father was in the RAF in WW2 and mum was bombed in Malta
The ‘National Health Service System’ is doing what Hitler could not. What has been done to my mum is cruel and unfair. Not one of the Doctor’s that has seen my mum over the last 24 months have ever considered the cumulative trauma effect of the mistakes that have been made.
Not one executive member of the NHS has bothered to inquire if she is OK or even apologized.
Yes individual Doctors and Nurses have shown care, but those that have been responsible for the mistakes have displayed no understanding of the pain she has been in and have never apologized.
So all I can say in answer to the question is that in the case of my mum nobody has appreciated the pain she has had to endure and the mental agony of dealing with it. I have because I have been with her everyday cruel and painful hour of the last 24 months.
My advice if you have an elderly relative is to learn as much as you can about the condition they suffer from and to remember the cumulative effect of all the individual condition's.
Tonight my mum was in tears when speaking to my sister on the phone from the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford where she is at the moment. Mentally she is drained. The mental strain must also be considered when an elderly person has several condition's.
In my mums case this consideration has been totally absent from the National Health Service System’.
Are doctors indifferent towards people's pain?
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