Wednesday my husband attended the “Fluorescing” X-Ray dept at our
local Peterborough Hospital for a Barium swallow exam of his throat. He is
confined to his wheelchair being a C3 spinal cord injury patient. The x-ray
machine had to be manoeuvred in an unfamiliar way to the staff on duty. We were
assured that the machine had a safety cut out to prevent it coming into contact
with Hubby.
Whilst the
operation was taking place one of the members of staff operated the machinery
in such a way as to move the machine onto Hubby’s legs, with such force that it
momentarily tipped him forward in his chair lifting the back wheels. The staff
then rather than using the machine to free Hubby straight away tried to
extricate him manually, then realising it had to be done via the controls as
his legs were wedged under the machine.
The staff checked Hubby
out for obvious signs of injury there being none we left the hospital. Since
the staff said they were going to fill in an incident report we were going to
leave this there and chalk it up to yet another bad experience as a disabled
person. Unfortunately though I have to report that Hubby has had significant
pain in his left thigh and knee following on from this incident, although no
bruising is evident so we will be making a formal complaint after all. Because
of Hubby’s spasticity it will be extremely difficult to x-ray this part of Hubby
leg to check for damage so this has put Hubby in an impossible situation.
What do we want
from Peterborough City Hospital:
1. A thorough
investigation as to why this piece of kit was able to come into contact with Hubby.
2. A thorough
review of training in the equipment.
3. A review of the
operating controls, are they confusing for the staff when the machine is
operated in this different way.
4. An apology from
the Hospital and an assurance that this will not happen to some other disabled
person.
So watch this
space and see whether they respond in a positive way.
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