Dementia Champions

The screensaver on the computer in the Emergency Department of York Teaching Hospital advertised for staff to volunteer as “Dementia Champions”. Oh, how we Brits love our irony. Read on, if you can stand it...
 
A day at the hospital with J's dad (J was ill, so "Jack Jones", I was). He'd developed what the care home were worried was cardiac chest pain. They did the right thing and called an ambulance, so I was conversing on the phone with the paramedic at 07.00h.
 
I've been saddened and heartened in equal measure. Saddened that an elderly patient with understanding difficulties wasn't shown fantastic amounts of compassion in the ED. Quality of care not in question; after the first contact with a doctor after three hours.
 
Saddened that the bloke accompanying him (me) wasn't greeted by any nurse, nor given any indication that any sort of joined up "patient pathway" even existed, virtually or in reality.
 
Saddened that I had to refuse him being taken into a crowded waiting area upstairs to wait two hours (just the way the test is done) to have his blood taken to check if he'd had an MI, rather than on a proper ward. By this time, he was more than "slightly agitated", shall we say.
 
Then... heartened by the young staff nurse who immediately saw that I was making sense and found a bed for him on the Acute Medical Ward. And came to find him with his sandwich and cuppa - he hadn't been offered anything at all in the ED.
 
Heartened that the staff on the AMU were fantastic, caring and patient. Frankly they were fantastic from the junior healthcare assistant, to the nurses, the junior doctor and then, S, a former consultant colleague who realised the pressure we were under and smoothed things along.

She even took time to find out what J used to do (Chief of the County’s police detectives) and reach out to him by sharing that her hubby is a “Red Cap”, military policemen. And several staff on the AMU kept asking me if I was OK through it all.

Heartened by the fact that the troponin came back negative – no MI. And by all the clinical colleagues I met during the day in the corridors and on wards and the chance to catch up with them.
 
Saddened by the fact that all day, I didn’t see one single clinical pharmacist on the wards, working with patients.
 
Heartened by getting home at 16.50h (go figure) but, then I'm pretty thick-skinned and can weather all sorts of the stuff the day threw at me.
 
And finally... really heartened by the fact that when I stopped working for the place, I automatically became a “Friend of York Hospital Trust” and can stand as a Public Member of the Board of Governors. Bring it on!
 
(Don't know much about the York Dispensary shown in the image. Will find out more, I promise...)