A hospital patient is refusing to leave her bed until she is treated after her operation was cancelled four times.

Patient refuses to leave hospital after operation cancelled
Article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Irene Gannon, 68, was due to have gall bladder surgery in July but the operation was called off at the last minute.

The grandmother had her treatment cancelled twice more but was given a new appointment and doctors insisted that, this time, it would go ahead.

When it was, perhaps predictably, cancelled a fourth time, she refused to get out of bed and insisted she would stay there until the operation went ahead.

Mrs Gannon, who is at the University hospital of Wales, in Cardiff, has been fasting every day from midnight in the hope that a surgeon will find a slot for her the following day, as she cannot be operated on if she has recently eaten."

I'll bet this sort of thing doesn't happen in other countries! - I was in hospital a year ago with a badly broken arm and my operation too kept being postponed although I was in agonising pain from the splint, which caused radial nerve damage and lymphoedema and pain in my breast from the pressure. In July this year I learned that I have ulnar nerve damage too...)o: which really needs an operation to prevent the right hand from further wasting and further restriction of movement. - I don't know why the damage to the ulna nerve was not looked for/detected and treated long ago. - I have been reporting severe pain and constant pins and needles and restricted movement for over a year. I don't know what is to become of me. Although with great effort on my part the radial nerve damage in the right hand has largely been remedied, the left hand is very painful because of the strain of having had to use it to do the work of two hands for months. The left shoulder has also been overstrained and is very painful and restricted in its movement. My pain and difficulties get worse every day and I have to have carers come to help me to get ready/dressed in a morning.

I don't think any of these painful, difficult, long-term consequences would have happened if my badly broken arm had been operated on promptly. As well as causing terrible, sustained avoidable suffering for me, this is certainly not a sensible use of manpower and resources.

Our lousy, extremely expensive NHS! - It needs to be scrapped and let us have a system that deals with the needs of patients - that treats patients as human beings.