‘The war wasn’t as bad’ – DDH patient
90yr old Doris Berry from Batley who was in Dewsbury Hospital for 11 days and noticed a catalogue of errors.
AN elderly woman says she had a better experience during the war than her 11 day stay at Dewsbury and District Hospital.
Doris Berry said she only had one decent meal while she was on the geriatric ward of the hospital, and witnessed ‘buckets’ of food being thrown away every day as patients refused to eat what they had been served.
She said she also saw patients calling for up to an hour for a nurse, only to be told none were available, and a medicine cabinet left unlocked and wide open on the ward for an hour.
“I hope and pray I never have to go in there again,” she said.
“I lived during the war and I’ve never even seen anything as disgusting as it is there.”
Mrs Berry, who lives in Denham Court in Carlinghow, was in hospital for a bad water infection, and said she was discharged last Thursday without being given any discharge papers.
She said during her stay she constantly complained about the food.
“I wouldn’t have given those lunches to a dog,” she said.
“In all my time there I only had one nice meal. They’d come around with a bucket and fill it with all the uneaten food.”
Mrs Berry, 90, also said she called out and pressed her nurse call button for an hour as another patient attempted to get out of bed.
“I was shouting for a nurse and pressing my buzzer but no-one came. When a member of staff did come an hour later she said ‘what’s all the noise about?’ I told her there was a lady trying to get out of bed and needed a nurse, and was told there were none about.
“I’m frightened to death I’ll have to go back there.”
Mrs Berry said she noticed the hospital staff had left a medicine trolley unlocked on the ward, with the lid up.
“Anyone could have gone in and taken anything as there was no-one around, and what could I have done about it?
“I’m 90, but I’m not senile. I know what’s right and wrong,” she said.
Mrs Berry said she was waiting for a complaint form to be delivered to her so she could officially complain about her experience at Dewsbury and District Hospital.
She said: “What’s going on there needs to be made public. It shouldn’t be happening.”
Acting director of nursing and quality at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust, which runs the hospital, Susan Walker said: “We take concerns about patient care and experience very seriously and we will contact Mrs Berry to allow us to properly look into this.”
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Weather for Batley
Sunday 19 May 2013
Today
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Temperature: 10 C to 19 C
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Wind direction: North west
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