Second Helpings

Hospital Visiting

Excuse my absence yet again, but this week has been spent almost totally at the new hospital where my Dad is a patient.

Monday, we spent the day driving round in circles in the miniscule car park trying to find an empty space. It was after midnight when we found one, so we decided to stay the night for fear of losing it.

Tuesday, we entered the new building and spent the rest of the day wandering around mazes of massive, empty corridors looking for the lifts. We walked over our recommended ten thousand steps and burnt over five thousand calories. By the time we found them we were so exhausted we slept outside them.

Wednesday, we spent waiting for a lift to actually arrive on our level, then pressing various buttons trying to decide if we needed to go up or down, whether the doors were opening or closing and what actual floor my Dad's ward was situated on. By the time we found it, it was dark and we were so tired we slept in the laundry bins.

Today, we've completed a second half marathon trying to locate ward 22, then attempting to find an actual member of staff, or God forbid a nurse or doctor to ask where they've put my father and what they intend to do with him.

Who knows? Tomorrow we might even get to find his bed.

Okay, so I exaggerate a wee bit. I avoid doctors and hospitals like the plague, if you'll excuse the pun. I don't know what my blood pressure, cholesterol levels, BMI index, liver function or one remaining brain cell conditions are. I suffer from ostrich syndrome and would rather remain ignorant and prescription-free as long as I'm able. But, over the years I've lost count how many hospital visits I've made to see members of my family. It must run into hundreds and that isn't an exaggeration.

It's a good job I'm not a hospital phobic, although I'm sure no one actually likes the places. Yes, I'm lucky to live in a country with a National Health Service and appreciate our emergency services and health care workers. There is however, still a three tier system and a lot of problems and inefficiency, but that's a topic for another time maybe. My problem at the moment is why new hospitals are designed in such a way, they are totally patient and visitor unfriendly and bloody impractical to boot.

Signs are so small and infrequent, no one without a degree in geography or with any visual impairment would be able to see or understand them. Space is so wasted with corridors the size of the great wall of China and open areas big enough to accommodate all the competitors plus the whole audience of Strictly Come Dancing. There's a shortage of hospital beds however.

Lifts are slow to arrive and enjoy being perverse, rooms are impersonal with little privacy and all the nurse's station desks are placed well outside the rooms, where staff cannot see into them. My dad has a scenic view from the wndow of a plain white, plastic domed roof from the corridor below to stare at all day. The building is still being worked on and the car parks will be added later. I'm not a planner or an expert but that seems rather unworkable. I guess it's what we call progress.

There's actually nothing wrong with my Dad apart from his propensity to falls. But after almost a fortnight in hospital we are still awaiting a visit from Social Services to assess his condition and whether a referral for sheltered accommodation is needed. I suspect this may take a few years, by which time my Dad will be a centenarian and I'll have walked off so much weight roaming around hospital corridors, I'll either be displayed in one of them as a human skeleton or need a new wardrobe of clothes five sizes smaller. I have to live in hope something good will come out of this chaotic and frustrating thing I call my life.