Gran, 86, in tears at hospital move

From the The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald, first published Thursday 9th Mar 2006.

DEVOTED daughter June Jaques is fuming after health bosses secretly moved her frail mother from one hospital to another in what she branded a "covert, SAS-style exercise."

Mrs Jaques, of Fitzwarren Close, Chippenham, said her elderly mother was left frightened and confused by the saga early on Sunday morning.

"I can't believe they didn't pre-arrange a time with me," she said. "The disruption and upset could have caused another stroke or worse.

"They call themselves the Primary Care Trust but the last thing they do is care."

Grandmother Janet Speare, 86, was one of the vulnerable patients forced to leave the doomed Westbury Hospital before it closed on Sunday.

Despite a last-ditch attempt to save it, bosses at West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust made the controversial decision to close the hospital due to a lack of staff.

Diabetic Mrs Speare, who has been in hospital for five months since suffering a severe stroke at her home in Bradford on Avon, was shifted to Melksham Community Hospital.

Angry Mrs Jaques said she was told her mother would be moved on Sunday or Monday afternoon, and had made plans to be by her side.

She rushed to comfort Mrs Speare, who was in a distressed state, after getting a phone call at 9am on Sunday to say she was already in Melksham.

Mrs Jaques said: "She was unable to eat and spent the morning crying. She is afraid, confused and fretting after being taken from the safe environment that, after almost five months, she had come to see the community hospital at Westbury as."

She said her mother was woken from a deep sleep, dressed without the bath or cooked breakfast she is used to,and taken in an ambulance to Melksham. Mrs Jaques said: "A senior member of the nursing staff at Westbury did apologise at the way things were being done, but I'm not blaming the staff, they've all been wonderful.

"Other members of staff have also expressed the view that the transfers have been carried out in this way in an effort to avoid media attention and embarrassment to the PCT."

She wrote to the chief executive of the PCT, Carol Clarke, conveying her feelings at what she labelled the disgusting management of the situation.

Mrs Speare will move again, to a nursing home, when a place is available.

Her daughter said: "To add insult to injury, my mother now needs full nursing care two nurses, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In order to achieve this her property and assets are being used to finance her care and her home is being sold."

Jenny Barker, director of operations for the PCT apologised for the distress caused to Mrs Jaques and her mother and said: "Transferring patients is disruptive and can be distressing at the best of times and we were very clear that it was important that we protected the privacy of those patients during their move.

"That was for their sake, not ours."

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