"The discharge process was exhausting"

Ambulance staff

Waiting time

Transport

My husband was an in patient in Orthopaedics at the QEUH in Glasgow (Ward 10B) after a fall at home when he broke his pelvis. He stayed in for 3 weeks and although did not need surgery he took some time to recover as he has a below knee amputation and is a type 1 diabetic with a renal transplant.

When he was ready to return home to me we were told he was to be discharged by ambulance that afternoon however after waiting for hours in the ward he had given up getting home and was feeling very low and tired as he had been sitting for a while so returned to bed with no update on what was happening and no further input from the ward staff.

Hours had passed into the night and at around 1.30am the ambulance crew arrived on the ward and they proceeded to get him out of bed onto a chair to take him home. This was unexpected due to the time of night/early hours of the morning and also because he was sore and tired from waiting for so long with no indication of what was happening.

When he went into the ambulance there was one other patient being discharged but they were going to an address in the opposite direction to my husband so he spent an hour and a half in the ambulance sitting up with no pain relief and felt every bump on the road due to his fractured pelvis.

When he got to our home at around 3am he was exhausted and the crew who were from Alliance ambulance service were lovely but had to lift him into bed.

The discharge process was exhausting and unnecessarily distressing for him and I and took us about three days to get over as we are both in our 70s. I'm not sure why he had to be discharged in the middle of the night and with all of his conditions it was very difficult to manage once he did come home.