My dad's terminal diagnosis went in for a lot longer than predicted, so he was discharged and referred a couple of times to palliative care which was a bit time consuming.
I recently rang palliative care and expressed my concerns on my father's impending death and severe pain and was greeted with abrupt and rude greeting that they was not a visiting service, despite no one seeing my dad for months. I told them he was sleeping in a chair as could no longer walk to the bed. They took his last visit from them 5 months prior where he gave the impression he didn’t want them to come to him personal.
On his last week he was in severe pain and no one from palliative team got in touch despite me calling them. 111 had to send home care within the last 24 hours and 111 nurses had to administer the injection drugs. The drugs that was just about to expire as they had been in the cupboard so long.
My view is the palliative team did not address concerns from family members even when expressing the patient will downplay their illness as too proud to admit when in pain. I think if someone had come out to see him in his last week, it wouldn’t have resulted in a terrifying death and family members not understanding what is normal or not. We had to witness such process with googling symptoms along the way for advice. It was absolutely horrific to see and personally feel traumatised and have now developed a huge fear of dying.
"Not a good experience"
About: University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust / Palliative Care University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust Palliative Care Poole BH15 2JB
Posted by Poole (as ),
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