The Ensuite Age
I read a very powerful and moving opinion piece the other day - by Janice Turner writing in The Times.
I know nothing about Janice Turner's politics - and care even less.
Because what I do care about is that she was speaking the truth - about care standards for older people when they go into hospital.
Janice was writing about her elderly dad who had broken his hip - here's part of what she had to say.
"What a predicament for all of us, if we get 88 like him, as many of us surely will. Two thirds of NHS beds are already occupied by the elderly.
Reading the Care Quality Commission's report this week about "shocking" hospital treatment of the old, I found myself deeply undershocked. I should say that my father's ward is well run - the hospital is not on the CQC's bad list - and cheerful Yorkshire nurses do indeed make sure he eats and is comfortable, dry and warm. What is more, he says they serve "a very good cup of tea". All of those boxes: ticked.
I was going to write "they couldn't be better". But actually they could. Not the nurses or that hospital, but the whole business of treating the elderly. What are they doing in that ward with a dozen others? Wards were for a time when holidays were spent in boarding houses queueing for a single shared bathroom. Wards are not for the ensuite age.
I wouldn't want to be in a barely curtained booth, with scant place to put my possessions, listening to a poor distressed man with Alzheimer's in the next bed, while I'm recovering from surgery. I would be maddened by the fluorescent lights, the party atmosphere at the nurses' station at shift change, the jabber of other people's visitors. I'd be mortified that they could hear my cries, my funeral plans. I'd want silence, solitude, darkness."
Now that's what good newspapers and good journalism is all about - writing with raw passion and feeling - raising issues that need to be raised.
Speaking the truth to power - and anyone else willing to listen.
Because - speaking from personal experience - I can honestly say that care of the elderly in our NHS hospitals - is still stuck in the dark ages.
And I agree with Janice Turner's comments - 100%.
I know nothing about Janice Turner's politics - and care even less.
Because what I do care about is that she was speaking the truth - about care standards for older people when they go into hospital.
Janice was writing about her elderly dad who had broken his hip - here's part of what she had to say.
"What a predicament for all of us, if we get 88 like him, as many of us surely will. Two thirds of NHS beds are already occupied by the elderly.
Reading the Care Quality Commission's report this week about "shocking" hospital treatment of the old, I found myself deeply undershocked. I should say that my father's ward is well run - the hospital is not on the CQC's bad list - and cheerful Yorkshire nurses do indeed make sure he eats and is comfortable, dry and warm. What is more, he says they serve "a very good cup of tea". All of those boxes: ticked.
I was going to write "they couldn't be better". But actually they could. Not the nurses or that hospital, but the whole business of treating the elderly. What are they doing in that ward with a dozen others? Wards were for a time when holidays were spent in boarding houses queueing for a single shared bathroom. Wards are not for the ensuite age.
I wouldn't want to be in a barely curtained booth, with scant place to put my possessions, listening to a poor distressed man with Alzheimer's in the next bed, while I'm recovering from surgery. I would be maddened by the fluorescent lights, the party atmosphere at the nurses' station at shift change, the jabber of other people's visitors. I'd be mortified that they could hear my cries, my funeral plans. I'd want silence, solitude, darkness."
Now that's what good newspapers and good journalism is all about - writing with raw passion and feeling - raising issues that need to be raised.
Speaking the truth to power - and anyone else willing to listen.
Because - speaking from personal experience - I can honestly say that care of the elderly in our NHS hospitals - is still stuck in the dark ages.
And I agree with Janice Turner's comments - 100%.
