Juggling

I am now on extended home leave (seven days) from the ward and it is not going well. I am feeling very low and hopeless. I’ve already spent an evening in our local minor injuries unit (as a result of self-harm). The staff team down there are brilliant, absolutely fantastic and I just couldn’t ask to be treated by a better set of people. It makes such a difference in my decision to seek treatment.

It was agreed at ward round on Thursday that I would let someone know if I was really struggling at home and therefore needed to re-access a bed. I haven’t, as of yet, because I just don’t see the point. The ward is currently running at a minimum of 150% occupancy. As soon as a patient goes on leave, their bed is technically empty and, as deemed by the ‘pen pushers’, can then be used. For, I am guessing, financial reasons, the trust no longer uses any private beds. This has come into its own in the last couple of months, when twice the multi-faith room on our ward has been quickly turned into an extra bedroom to manage an emergent situation. I can bet my life on the fact that ‘my’ bed now has someone else in it and will have had from Thursday night. It never used to be like that. People used to go on leave for the weekend safe in the knowledge they’d have a bed to return to on Sunday night. The nursing staff (and the bed manager, Monday to Friday, 9 – 5), at the moment, are constantly juggling beds. If I do phone the ward they’ll say: “Well you could come back...if we had a bed”. I have called them, in that I’ve dialled the number, but then chickened out when someone has answered. Not sure why really as I am well aware that the nursing staff share my frustrations. It really helps actually; this is one issue of which we are all on the same side.

My plan of action is to call my consultant on Monday who can help the nursing staff with their juggling act. Monday also brings a ward round so some ‘movement’ on the ward and a bed is much more likely to become available than over the weekend. Being on leave means I have priority of access, as opposed to a new admission, which will work in my favour. If I was really desperate they would have to find me a bed now as I hold 'inpatient status', but that could be anywhere in the county, which I just think is absolutely ridiculous. I am currently an inpatient on a ward but I don’t have a bed there? The system is in total crisis.

Hindsight tells me that in ward round on Thursday I should have just said I don’t think I am quite ready for extended leave; let’s give it a few more days. My ideal option would have been a night at home over the weekend to ‘test the water’ but for the reasons outlined above it is just not possible. I worry about how it will be perceived though, expressing a need for some more time on the ward. I fear being viewed as an ‘attention seeker’ or a ‘malingerer’ even though my ‘team’ constantly remind me that I am deemed an ‘appropriate user of services’.

I have reached the end with all the politics and bureaucracy. Why can’t it just be about patient care? Period.