Things Aren't Getting Any Better

So a few days further down the line and what once looked like the strong beginning of my Granddads recovery is now looking like it may just be playing for time. I have to say that he looks to be slipping down hill pretty fast and, whilst I know that family and friends are making every effort possible, that is more than I can say for the hospital that he is at.

I will name and shame without compunction; The John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, may be one of the best hospitals in the country for clinical excellence but the nursing standards on the wards are diabolical. They do not make sure the patients eat - and if they do not they take no action. The level of care is poor, slow and at best, reactionary. There are very few nurses, and even fewer that speak English to a decent standard. Hygiene is questionable - on the occasions that I have been visiting, there have been nurses and doctors doing the rounds. Despite them all carrying hand gel with them, I haven't once seen any of them use it, even after directly treating patients with infections. There seems to be absolutely no will to treat patients as human beings with the need to interact with those around them, they simply view them as beds to be freed up and numbers to be pushed around on paper.

So that said and done, this is not helping - or asking for help - for a resolution to the situation. this all seems such a mess and the outcome does not look too rosy right now. I am sacred that we are loosing him, little by little. And the process for getting it sorted out and him into a private specialist hospital is so slow that the fear is that it may be too far down the slippery slope to begin a way back.

One thing that I do know - there's no way that I want to get old. I hope more than I can express, that I am called home before I reach old age.

Lord, I dont know where this is all going,

I don't even know what I should be praying for any more.

At what point is it wrong to pray for someone to live,

Simply because you do not want them to die?

Regardless of the suffering that they may be in.

Is there a way back from here?

All I know is that if there is a way back,

It is only with your strength that I can be done.

So once again, I pray for the survival and recovery

Of Arthur Frank Samson

and for your strength and love on all the rest of the family

who are trying to rally round.

I pray in Jesus name

Amen