Family Matters

[Marilyn]

By the way, the most common cause of breathlessness in elderly folk is ANEMIA....lack of iron due to inadequate diet.
Just a thought. Have they had blood tests recently? ( and often the inadequate dietary intake is due to poor fitting dentures!)
And another common cause is fluid build up in the lungs due to a weak heart.
Then there could be fluid in the abdomen, which contributes to the lungs been displaced due to pressure into the rib cage.
Best to treat the cause of the breathlessness than pop an oxygen mask on, because once you are on oxygen therapy, it is unlikely you will ever come off it. The body gets lazy and reliant on it.

[Tizer]

Very interesting Maz and I agree with all you say, and I wish the medics and doctors would give such a helpful explanation when they refuse to provide oxygen or make it difficult. As a scientist I'm aware too of the flammability problems of oxygen in the home but the UK government wants elderly folk to be cared for in their homes and not in communal care homes so there needs to be provision of oxygen in the domestic environment and it will become increasingly common. Taking an elderly, ill person to hospital in a car, without medical supervision, when they are hardly able to breathe is not only dangerous for the patient but very worrying for the relative who has to drive them there (in my mum's case it was in February with snow and ice about). The oxygen issue concerns me personally because I now get breathless and it looks like I inherited it from my mum - I've never smoked or been regularly exposed to dust etc and I've had all the medical tests on heart, blood, lungs, circulation etc. Genetically disposed to COPD seems to be the only diagnosis.

[Marilyn]

Believe it or not Tiz, COPD patients are the last ones you want to give prolonged O2 therapy to...but you really need the reasons to be explained by a doctor.

[Tizer]

Oh dear, and I'd been so looking forward to having my own free oxygen cylinder so I could do experiments to find out which materials spontaneously combust in an oxygen atmosphere.

[Stanley]

Trust you to come up with that.........

[Tizer]

Mrs Tiz's mum has dismissed 2 of the 3 daily carers regardless of her need for them and the fact that dad was benefiting from them too. Now she's expecting him to help her get into bed but he can't lift her easily. We don't know how they're going to cook meals. Mum's attitude to carers is not helped by one of them opening the dishwasher while it was running and now it won't work.

Yesterday I took my dad to hospital for a biopsy on a swollen lymph gland under his armpit. We had to wait over an hour before getting in to see the doc and I asked his nurse why the delay - she said he doesn't finish his ward round until 11.00am but someone had booked appointments starting from 10.00am! The reception area serves a lot of doctors and it was packed because two other docs were running 30-40 minutes late. We were lucky to be able to sit down - soon all the chairs were taken and people were having to stand. It's down to the lack of coordination, communication, scheduling etc again.

[Stanley]

All evidence contributing to my incompetence theory. I wish I had words of comfort for you...

[EileenDavid]

Too much incompetence in the over staffed administration. Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. I had an a appointment with the audiology department. Told them I was away for 3 months from April - June, and was told no problem. On my return found 2 appointment letters so phoned to advise why I hadn't attended. The response "Oh I see there is a note on the file to tell us that". Made me another appointment on the phone which was cancelled due to sickness in the Audiology department, made me another appointment again on the phone followed up with a letter then it was cancelled again. An appointment was made by one of the administrators, then a different administrator phoned to give me a cancellation appointment that had come up. When I advised I had an appointment "Oh yes I can see that now on your file." It didn't finish there I then got a letter of confirmation and this time did attend. It's no wonder there's no money for services in the NHS we are paying for too many incompetent administration staff.

The same can be said in all the Government Departments and in my opinion is were there are cuts to be made so providing money for the services they are hell bent on cutting. Eileen

[Tizer]

Last year my dad had a hospital appointment on a Monday morning and we phoned at the end of the previous week to check that the appointment was still on. We were told in no uncertain terms "We never cancel appointments at this late stage". On the Monday we had to set out early to collect dad and get him to the hospital on time in one of the local towns. Just as we were walking out of the door the phone rang and we were told the appointment was cancelled because the doctor had phoned in to say he was taking the day off due to sickness. It was pure coincidence of course that the previous day had been the World Cup final.

Yesterday he had an appointment with the GP but no idea why, so Mrs Tiz took him - it turned out the appointment was made to give him his results from the biopsy...but they won't be available for about a week. Lack of joined up thinking again. At least he was given his flu jab while in the surgery.

[Moh]

I got 2 letters the other week one confirming an appointment at BGH on 10th Oct and another cancelling it and giving me one for 25th Nov. Both dated 17th Sept.!!

[Stanley]

I know these matters are intensely annoying but in many cases I detect the same problem that has affected so many government departments, the over-reliance on computerisation. The puzzle is that in the early days this resulted in getting rid of clerical staff in an attempt to justify the cost of the computerisation. However we are now told that the numbers of administrators is rising again. Add to this the use of agency staff to plug gaps and this may be a partial explanation of the problems. Over complicated procedures and a clash between the impersonal computers and the realities of life like sickness and incompetence. One thing is certain, there were fewer cock-ups when the task was simply an appointments ledger and a list of patients with a long-serving clerk sat there chewing a pencil. Or am I just an old dinosaur?

[EileenDavid]

I agree with you Stanley administration has taken over. Hospitalisation the nurses used to write up notes when they were on nights and patients were asleep, not anymore each ward has around 3 ward clerks working 09.00 - 5.00. The ward sister collected my prescription for me as I was being discharged at 8.00am and although it was a ward clerk job they didn't start until 09.00.

I thought David Cameron uttered something about reducing all Public Service workers but they keep the administration and get rid of the services to pay them. Perhaps he needed to spell it out.

Closing care homes resulted in a service cut but all the staff who worked in these were absorbed in other areas.

Eileen

[Tizer]

Computers, email and the internet, together with mobile communications, have definitely brought many benefits but they've also brought new problems. One of the biggest is known as "The computer says so", which is when the computer user blindly accepts whatever the computer displays without giving any thought to whether it might be wrong, corrupt, imprecise, inappropriate etc. In retrospect I now realise that this problem was preceded by "The calculator says so" which was exhibited by many of the science students (and some of their supervisors!) that I encountered in the 70s and 80s before we had desktop PCs. Analytical results would be read off a machine such as a gas chromatograph then crunched in the calculator to get figures such as chemical compositions. The students would come to me with their calculated results and I'd have to say things like "Do you really think lemonade contains 50% fat?" It was often down to hitting the wrong button or getting the decimal points wrong...but they hadn't been taught to make a rough mental assessment of the validity of the figures and, anyway, often didn't have the mental arithmetic ability to make that assessment.

The computer is much more impressive than the calculator and therefore even more prone to idolisation and belief. But it now pervades all areas, not just maths, because so many customer services and call centres work from computer scripts and now "The computer says so" might result in an elderly, disabled widow having her bank account shut down because the computer says she has made a fraudulent transaction or moved all her savings to Kazakhstan.

[Moh]

I got 2 letters the other week one confirming an appointment at BGH on 10th Oct and another cancelling it and giving me one for 25th Nov. Both dated 17th Sept.!!

Guess what - I got 2 more letters this morning - one cancelling 28th Nov. the other giving new one for 29th Oct. Better for me though.

[Stanley]

Moh, you don't surprise me. Never mind, the computer will be happy now it's tidied it's internal files up. Problem is it never gave you a moment's thought!
Remember the promise of the paperless office? Thirty yeas ago the Principal of a large college in Preston was showing me round his new building. He took me into a large room adjoining the office and told me this was the storage area for the computer print-outs. He was sceptical about 'paperless' even then. It's a bit like the Xerox syndrome I came up against at university in the 1970s, you photo-copied and extract from a learned journal and then filed it. It was almost as though you had a belief that the process of Xeroxing implanted the knowledge in your head by osmosis. The photo copy ruled! I suspect the same applies to print-outs.
Then we had the syndrome of agency staff and out-sourcing being used to 'input' the written data into the computers. Garbage in = garbage out and any mistakes in translation lurked there waiting to cause problems down the line. Then it got worse as programmes became smarter, rogue algorithms had unintended consequences. The bottom line is that a system is only as good as it's programming and transfer and increased reliance on it atrophies the old-fashioned concepts of analysis. However it's great for the statisticians who are acting as apologists for the system, they can produce mountains of 'evidence' at a key stroke which bury any criticism under a mountain of figures.

[Tizer]

Moh, don't forget, you can phone the hospital and ask for the appointment to be changed to a day and/or time that suits you. It won't always work but we've done it with my father when they've given an appointment that's early in the day - we have to drive into a town to collect him, through the town and out the other side, then in and out a second town to get to the hospital on the other side.

Stanley, I know your Xerox syndrome well - and it's also part of the system whereby published research results are recycled...the more academic papers you have to hand, the more reviews you can write based on them! Researchers can spend lots of time discussing each other's work.

[Moh]

I tried that when they cancelled my first appointment, that is when I got the November one. I did not think my problem would wait that time so that is why they gave me the new October one. I had to get my Dr. to send them a letter. They have urgent and very urgent appointments but cannot do anything without the surgeon's OK.
It is the dermatology clinic I am going to (I have an ulcer on my leg that does not want to heal, it is on an existing scar and the whole area is breaking down because of being covered up for a long time) - the lady told me they are the busiest clinics but they still cancelled the whole clinic on the 10th October!!
I spoke to my friend in France last week and she said try Vitamin E capsules, burst the capsule and rub on the leg (so I am sitting here now having done that) or try pure honey. The guy in the Herbal shop said it usually does the trick - we shall see.

[Stanley]

Moh, my mate Newton would have put Manganesite pipe jointing compound on it but I'm not recommending you do the same! I used to laugh at Newt till I heard a report on Woman's Hour of a new treatment for abdurate leg ulcers that was based on Manganese Dioxide, the same ingredient as the jointing paste! I suspect Manganesite is Manganese dioxide mixed with boiled Linseed Oil. My mother used to put surgical spirits on her chilblains caused by bad circulation resulting from polio. She never had a leg ulcer but what does that prove?

[EileenDavid]

Hello Moh, I posted on here sometime ago about a friend who has suffered with psoriasis for over 40 years her legs were a right mess, but she has not only been rubbing 20+ Manuka honey on the problem but taking it as well and her legs are now clear. When she stops taking it the problem comes back. Eileen

[Tizer]

Slightly off-topic here, but I looked for manganesite jointing compound on Google and, guess what, ended up at a forum with a link to an OGFB post. Unfortunately it's on the old site and the link to it doesn't work - I wonder how many other links like this to the old OGFB are scattered across the Internet and now don't work? (Someone on the forum said manganesite jointing compound was what Fred Dibnah ate for breakfast!)

[Stanley]

Don't know about Fred but Newton used Manganesite for a wound dressing and it worked!



Noted on back label that it's non-poisonous to differentiate it from other jointing compounds made from lead compounds

[Marilyn]

For heaven's sake...don't use the contents of that old tin on any wound!
Blimey Stanley ! (sheesh) The things you keep.

[Tizer]

I hope he doesn't keep it next to the treacle tin in the kitchen!

[Stanley]

Nope, workshop and it's as good today as when it was manufactured, probably better because it's thickened up a bit. Used some on my engines only a couple of weeks ago.

[Tripps]

To inject a bit of joy and optimism into this thread - we got a new grand daughter at the weekend. 7lbs 14 oz, She will be called Eve. A sister for Anna.
Two little palindromes.