"Dad who has vascular dementia"

Dad had been in both Crosshouse Hospital and Ayr Hospital for 3 months with a chest infection, irregular heartbeat followed closely by delirium, which left him with quite well progressed vascular dementia. He had no diagnosis before he went into hospital at Crosshouse and had been working on the farm until the day before, he is in his late seventies. He has also had a pacemaker fitted in this time.

On his discharge from Crosshouse two months ago he could not talk, walk or eat by himself. He was admitted to Ailsa hospital, Dunure Ward at that stage and within an hour of arriving there he was walking and talking and within days he was feeding himself as well! The staff, doctors, nurses and care assistants, have all been fantastic, we can not praise them highly enough, they have nursed dad, kept him clean and tidy, made sure he was eating and drinking and been a friend to him through all of this so much so that he is now able to be discharged to a nursing home! They also made us as dads family feel so welcome any time we felt we wanted to see dad.

We feel that if dad had been left in Crosshouse hospital or Ayr Hospital his outlook may not have had such a happy outcome as the nursing staff were not able to cope with the type of illness and symptoms that dad was displaying, which sometimes could be very challenging, through no fault of his own. We strongly believe that there should be more mental health nurses within medical wards as people with dementia or mental health problems need the type of specialist care they can offer.