General Chat

Oh boy am I all fired up now - my favourite hobby horse this one - I've had letters printed on this subjert in my local newspaper, the South Wales Echo - everyone agrees but we seem powerless to do anything. I thought it was called NATIONAL Health Service - it doesn't appear to be any of these - not National, not healthy and certainly very poor service in many cases - no wonder staff are demoralised and disillusioned

Must fly girls.
Take care


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Fancy cancer patients not getting free prescriptions - that's scandalous - unless you have personal knowledge in this area no one knows. Course they do in Wales as do sufferers of everything else, but really, anyone with a life threatening disease shoudl not have to worry about paying for scripts never mind where they live.

Cancer patients have to pay for their medication, but thyroid patients don't. Methadone users don't pay either. Where's the justification in that.

I agree with you Ann.

With regard to hospital domestics - their pay is appalling and they are contract workers. Years ago they were part of the NHS and took a pride in their job. Generally they were allocated to a particular ward and took pride in keeping it clean. Now they are contracted in - it's all about money making not cleanliness - and can be put to work anywhere on rotten pay so in some respects you can hardly blame them for not taking an interest in what they do. They should have a new pay structure, they should have training and qualifications to reflect that pay and then we should see a difference - until then things will carry on the way they are. Privatising parts of hospital care and going "Trust" has been the downfall of the NHS as anyone who works or has worked there will confirm. Domestics pay is so low they cannot get a mortgage and they have no security of job. It has to end and quickly

I always thought ALL diabetics were exempt? My OH is type 2 but still gets his meds free...
Do they know they should be free,not everyone does.

I know of some diabetics who get the scripts free, but some have to pay for them. Can't make head not tail of the rules.

Well from what I can understand, the £6.75 or whatever we pay over here goes nowhere near to covering the actual cost of some of the drugs prescribed, though glad my OH's are free (diabetic) becuase he has 11 different pills to be prescribed for.

you're right, we don't pay for prescriptions and although I get mine free anyway - OAP - I feel some charge should be made. I'm old enough to remember Harold Wilson lifting prescription charges across the UK and it soon had to be stopped cos people were getting things like bandages and plasters on script. Don't think they'd get away with that these days but do feel some charge should be made

Don't get me started on script charges. That's another bone of contention

Haven't the Welsh abolished prescription charges? Is it the nurses who are paying for this with their lack of proper pay? It makes you wonder.

Time to cut the politicians salaries dramatically

nurses in Cardiff are talking of striking at the minute - morale is at an all time low - my friend works for local hospital - she hasn't had a cost of living rise since a year last April!! Some nursing assistants at one of our local hospitals were actually crying - they have mortgages which are rising all the time. They are also doiong a scheme here called "Agenda for change" which is a high falutin' name for cutting pay for some and upping it for others,. So much dissatisfaction all round on every level. The nurses are saying they will no longer do "goodwill" overtime to fill gaps and the trust will just have to get agency nursses in at around £60 an hour! How daft is that. We predict a real crisis in the NHS in South Wales very soon

Jan I fully agree. It makes my blood boil when I think of the salary these 'pen pushers' in the NHS are getting for doing sweet nowt. (trying to be polite) lol
This is peoples lives we're talking here.

Oh, I'm away to put my dinner on before I burst a blood vessel.

x

I know this may sound stupid

But

If they brought back the old fashioned "Matron" wards would be run better.
My dad went into hospital for a bypass, 5 days post op. He came out 5 months later minus his Sternum and Ribs due to catching MRSA,

We did a 140 mile round trip daily to make sure my dad was washed and fed. When I asked the nurse why dad hadn't been washed I was told "we put the water bowl in front of him". I saw no sign of barrier nursing. Dad was so out of it even now 7 years later he cannot remember being in hospital.

My darling dad cannot do hardly anything for himself now, mum does most of it and we help wherever we can.

Bring back the Matron, that used to check the surfaces and the cleaning, When I worked in the hospital we were petrified when she did the round in case we had forgotten something, if we had we soon knew it and never made that mistake again.

Sorry to go on

Jan x

No, she didn't have gloves on. I have said for many years they should not have done away with Matrons in hospitals, if they still had them, they could save money, as they would'nt have so many neglect cases against them.

I bet her hands were not gloved either. Yes we were always told never to handle food after handling money without washing our hands first.

Hospital cleaning is obviously a specialised job, its not like other cleaning jobs, ie shop and office. It stands to reason that no cleaner should be within a mile of a hospital without a formal qualification.

I also agree with bringing back the matron. Someone needs to be on hand to oversee that standards are being kept up, and even to set the standard in the first place.

I went into my local chippy, and stood waiting for chips to be ready. The female was serving people at the front of the queue. She scooped the chips into the tray, pushed them down with her hand, then lifted a steak pie with her hand. I said to the owner that his staff should be using the tongs, and walked out. I will never be back there.

That is a serious training issue, but it is that kind of everyday automatic action that spreads infection, and we all do it in our own way.

Years ago when I worked for the Wimpy, we had in-house hygeine training. We were told to wash our hands after EVERY action, even if we just took a used chopping board into the kitchen. It was instilled in us the importance of hygeine, and now you have to have a food handlers certificate to be able to work anywhere near food.

Surely it would make proper sense to take on similarly qualified cleaning staff in hospitals? That was you would eliminate that sort of thing.

Tell me. I had one who put his fingers in my cup to clean it, as it had a dirty mark. I took it off him and demanded a clean one.