Men of Influence magazine


‘Southern Trust Hospital visiting ban is cruel and inhumane’

A retired nurse who was not allowed to visit her 89-year-old father while he was in hospital said the experience was “cruel” and “inhumane”.

Grace Vine said that it was “gut-wrenching” not being allowed to see her father in Newry’s Daisy Hill Hospital when he believed he was going to die.

The Southern Trust has had a ban on hospital visitors since July.

It has now said from Monday it will allow one visitor per patient for one hour, once a week.

The Department of Health’s coronavirus guidance in Northern Ireland is to allow one relative to visit a patient once a day.

Earlier this week, patients in Western Health Trust hospitals were allowed to have one visitor a day, bringing visiting rules into line with Department for Health guidance.

In a statement, the Southern Trust said its priority was to create as safe an environment as possible for visitors, patients and staff.

However, Ms Vine said she was “not the only one struggling with the feeling you have let your parent down”.

‘He felt he was dying’

Ms Vine’s father spent two weeks in Newry’s Daisy Hill Hospital in August after being admitted with an infection and a further two weeks in a rehabilitation unit.

She said he was now back home and “doing well”, but that he remains anxious following his experience.

“I live in Scotland and he sent for me to come home because he felt he was dying,” she said.

Ms Vine said her father was taken to the emergency department on 7 August and admitted to hospital two days later.

She was then informed he had a urinary infection and pneumonia.

“He kept phoning me to see where I was and when I had arrived I had phoned to ask the ward could I get in due to his confusion and his age and the risk with the pneumonia.

“They said they would get back to me and every so often Daddy would phone: ‘Where are you? You said you were coming where are you?’.”

Daisy Hill

Ms Vine’s father spent two weeks in the Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry

Ms Vine said her father was located in a unit where her brother had died six months previously.

“And he was conscious of that too, so I think that probably added to his thoughts that he was going to die,” she said.

“They did come back and said no I wouldn’t be allowed in and that was kind of gut-wrenching.”

She said the trust had offered the option of “video-conferencing”, but that her father “doesn’t quite get that”.

‘Heart-breaking’

Her father was later moved to Cloughreagh House in Bessbrook, which she described as “a rehab centre” for her father.

“The good thing about Cloughreagh is that at least we could see him, not visit, but we could see him through a window,” Ms Vine said.

“I sat on the flowerbed below the window because he was upstairs and he could manage to stand for a couple of minutes and then he would sit and we would just talk to and fro.

“I would ring him on his mobile.

“It was heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking.”

Ms Vine said she cannot understand why the Southern Health Trust has the visiting ban in place.

“If they had a huge outbreak within the units themselves and they were really compromised staff-wise and everything else, yes I could possibly understand that, but they could have organised something to accommodate an old man and the family and it would have reassured all of us if we had got to see him,” she said.

“The remit is you are looking after their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing.

“As far as I am concerned, Dad’s physical needs were met in the medical care he was given, but the emotional, mental and spiritual needs weren’t being met.”

Getty Images Child holds hands with hospital patientGetty Images

Executive guidance says patients can receive one visit per day, but rules vary across Northern Ireland’s health trusts

In a statement, the Southern Health Trust’s Heather Trouton said: “We know that visitors are essential to the wellbeing of our patients, and wherever we can, we will support you to be with your loved one.

“However we continue to face particular challenges in admitting high numbers of patients to our ageing hospital buildings with limited available space – restricted further due to Covid-19 infection prevention measures.”

The trust’s new arrangements are that one of two nominated individuals from up to two households can visit, where this can be accommodated within Covid-secure environments.

Visiting will be by appointment only and must be planned in advance.



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