Madam,

I recently had a close family member who was treated at Bronglais Hospital after suffering a hip fracture. We were glad, as so often, to have this very vital hospital nearby in a time of crisis.

The consultant advised hospital stay for anything up to two weeks, and a home visit by an occupational therapist to establish how to adapt the home for an elderly person, in her eighties, with her consequent diminished mobility.

It was therefore with some consternation that we found out the next day that she had been woken up in the middle of the night, her bags packed and moved from her ward to the A&E department.

The following morning she was told that she would be going home. There was no-one at home nor was there going to be for a number of days, but this information had not been established or deemed relevant.

When I asked to see the manager to find out why there had been a sudden change in her care plan, I was told that I would have to wait as managers don’t make appointments. It was only when I asked a doctor to intervene that a manager did turn up, to explain to me that my relative had managed the stairs, albeit omitting to mention that she had done so supported by the therapist, and this in itself was proof that she could now cope by herself.

This manager seemed unaware that our family member had not taken her hearing aid to hospital, and therefore any interview would have been redundant as the conversation would have been only partly followed.

Insisting that I should speak to the doctor, I understood that from the medical perspective the original care plan was still valid and should be seen through. However, that evening, another manager told me that doctors don’t make the decisions, insisting again that my relative should now be taken home.

The question arises as to why a national health board should employ managers who go against the professional advice of doctors?

In time of financial difficulties, surely investing in improving the conditions for nurses, doctors and front-line staff, who do a phenomenal job in caring for people at their most vulnerable, would be better use of the NHS budget than subjecting them to the whims of target-driven managers who can only see hospital care in terms of empty beds?

Yours etc,

Cllr Lucy Huws, Trinity Road, Aberystwyth.

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