Comments on: Alone in the Crowd… http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/ The Ramblings of a Paramedic Stretcher Monkey Thu, 23 May 2013 00:57:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Home Care Seattle - Alleva http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-7759 Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:35:05 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-7759 This is great information for us in the Seattle Home Care field. Glad we found this page and information. THANKS!

]]> By: KatieVdh http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-172 Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:13:18 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-172 I work for a home care company (but in the office, I’m afraid, I don’t think I’d be good at the care itself!)

I have to really admire anyone who is in that line of work and I really am impressed by the care you gave to this man. You went beyond your call of duty and it’s admirable.

I only hope if any of my elderly relatives needed the emergency services, that they would get someone like you :)

Thanks for building up my faith

]]> By: kingmagic http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-170 Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:20:37 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-170 cogidubnus…sorry to hear about your mum. She must have been some lady. Lots of old folk are fiercely independent and fair play to them.

I know some that we have been called to live in victorian workhouse conditions if not worse, but refuse all help.

Its the ones who ask for help and get shunted from one agency to another but with nothing getting done.

And I have also been to a woman who lived in a complete shithole (with all due respect to her) and let her cats crap all over her house and her! She fell one night and the neighbour rang us when he took her weekly treat of fish and chips round.

She would always answer the front door, the hallway and front of the house was clean and tidy. But further in was a completely different story. Squalor and filth does not even begin to describe what we saw. Yet she still refused to attend A/E.

I tried to contact the out of hours social services team and they just said “could the neighbour put her up for the night!”

]]> By: cogidubnus http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-169 Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:02:33 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-169 My 69 year old, (asthmatic and diabetic, among other things), mother was on a Life-Line in Eastbourne, a town nearly 100 miles away from where I am…being fiercely independent this was probably the only realistic option for her…when she died, (to be fair, of a totally unexpected heart attack – or coronary infarction as they say), presumably she stupidly failed to press the button and it took them nearly a week to notice the difference…by which time I was rather worried too…

Her house was like Aladdins cave…everything she’d owned for years and years was there…but in a total mess and disorder…neither her neighbours nor her church (to whom she left all her worldly goods) noticed anything … and, before you ask visits from my wife and myself were totally “verbotten”…. SHE came to us, never vice – versa…

I’m sorry…I digress – only the police and the ambulance service emerge from this with credit (actually they were BOTH brilliant) – every other agency was totally useless…the lesson? Look after your aged relatives, because nobody else can be fully trsted to do it properly…

]]> By: Lucy http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-168 Fri, 12 Jan 2007 01:48:33 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-168 Despite all the ‘wonderful-ness’ of the hoardes of community teams brandishing packages of care the sad fact is out of hours often the only effective and available solution is your service and A&E.

Like it or not this type of deteriorating condition/failure to cope/off-legs/social admission ends up being best served by A&E as a place of safety and access route to the services needed.

Have you considered offering grumpy nurse a wee observation shift in the ambulance some night? This experience might last her even longer than it takes to get the smell of some houses out of her sinuses.

Lucy

]]> By: Iain MacBain http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-167 Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:23:16 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/01/11/alone-in-the-crowd/#comment-167 I’m not a fan of taking people toA&E unless they need to go and tend to refer things to NHS 24 or a GP quite a lot. Sometines however you must for the safety of the person involved, even if it’s not something A&E will deal with normally.

Good call I think, at all stages.

]]>