For a long time, whilst I was in Hospital I imagined that upon my discharge I would declare the name of the Hospital which I had been blogging about. Now, I'm out and the blog is up and running again, I've been faced with the same decision.
My view on the Hospital is confused and mixed. Just the other day I referred to it as a 'mistake' and 'failure' when talking to my Consultant and he was surprised. Lots of people would be, because I am better. But, I've thought about it; the aspect of the Hospital that helped me which couldn't be found anywhere else was the people. The good, positive, helpful people. My Consultant, the Ward Doctor, my Named Nurses', a couple of NAs, my best-friend and a few of the girls. Those people could only be found at that Hospital and they did have a massive impact on my recovery. It's one of those 'what if...?' scenarios. Could I have got better without those people? Could I have got better in an identical environment, with identical outside factors? We'll never know. I know that I probably sound ungrateful but there's something you don't know...
All of the mistakes they made meant there was relief when I left; thinking I'd left their affects behind. But I didn't. Because a member of their staff got in touch with me on Facebook. And we swapped numbers. He told me I'd made his job hard for him to be professional with me. He told me I meant a lot to him. He told me how staff told him I fancied someone and he got jealous. He told me he was jealous when I hugged another member of staff after him. He told me he thought it had been obvious that he fancied me. He told me he'd been waiting for me to contact him. He told me he'd dreamt about me and thought it a sign that he should message me. He told me he wanted to see me again.
I was so happy... After recent love life experiences my self-confidence meant that I was attracted to this member of staff but thought him out of my league!! My happiness resulted in me telling my best-friend and my Mum about it, both of whom thought the situation was worrying and wrong but were happy I was happy. I'm not a big texter so the amount of messages he and I exchanged over one weekend was ridiculous, even by most standards! It cumulated in my Mum telling me she was worried at how unprofessional he was being and then a message from him checking I hadn't told any of the girls still on the ward. I told him that he knew he'd risked his job by contacting me and that although I wasn't going to 'tell on him' he needed to stop worrying because it was he who had put it at risk. I got the typical reply; he shouldn't have started the relationship.
Since leaving that Hospital all those miles away where I happened to recover, I have had an apology and acknowledgement that the Ward Manager bullied me and notification that this member of staff admitted to messaging me and has been suspended. So you see, even though I'm all the way back here, that place is still making mistakes. Still affecting me.
So, forgive me if I sound ungrateful. I'm grateful for my recovery but not for all of the times that Hospital has tested it.
The reason I've chosen not to name and shame the place is that it would do no good. CQC (governing body for healthcare) are aware of all their mistakes especially having given them warnings before. The Nursing Council is aware of the Ward Manager's bullying. And more importantly, commissioners all over the UK are aware, this means that they will not pay that Hospital to take new patients until they've fixed all of their mistakes. In the same way that they forever told me to fix my own.
