Patient organisations expressed outrage on Tuesday over practices in certain public hospital wards, when it emerged that some include keeping patients secured to their beds.
Over the past 15 days the united patient’s association (Osak) and relatives of patients themselves, have brought serious complaints before Okypy, the state health services organisation.
The main thrust of Osak’s complaints centred on elderly patients kept tied to their beds, under the rationale that they constituted a danger to themselves. Another complaint involved patients sharing a wardroom who contracted Covid, following lax enforcement of hospital visitation rules over use of a protective mask.
In an interview with daily Philenews, spokesperson for Osak, Charalambos Papadopoulos, said that last week the organisation had been informed by relatives, of elderly patients in a pathology ward being tied to their beds.
“We investigated and confirmed [THE CLAIM]. Although we cannot give more details at present, we can say that it did not concern just a single bound patient, Papadopoulos told Philenews.
At the same time, the Osak representative said, a complaint was received from the daughter of an elderly woman co-hospitalised in a pathology wardroom with three other patients.
According to the complaint, visitors were permitted to enter the room on two consecutive days and stay for over an hour-and-a-half, without using masks. According to the complainant, on the third day she was informed at midday that she could not visit her mother, as one of the other inpatients had contracted Covid.
The woman asked if her mother would be moved and was told it would be done immediately, however, this was not done until nighttime, and her mother subsequently also contracted the virus.
These are attitudes that will eventually break public hospitals,” Papadopoulos said, adding that he hoped that the publication of these claims would result in discussion beyond “fights about staffing and understaffing.”
Confining a patient to their bed is a decision that should require psychiatric evaluation, Papadopoulos stated, and just because a patient is anxious this does not mean they should be confined, especially when elderly, and thus at risk of developing bedsores.
The argument that understaffing requires certain practices so staff can cope is unacceptable, Papadopoulos said.
The patient representative called on Okypy to assume its responsibilities and visit wards, saying that although incidents such as these may not occur in all departments, or be widely representative of staff attitudes, they do exist.
“Those who cannot serve their role as a nurse or doctor or other healthcare professional, should not be in a hospital,” Papadopoulos declared, pointing out that it cannot be that so many public complaints are false.
Unfortunately, these kinds of complaints, the secretary of Osak continued, in most cases end up nowhere, but this cannot continue.
Although it may not be immediately clear who is responsible on paper and an investigation is warranted, the responsibility lies with all the health workers in a room, not only with those holding the official authority, Papadopoulos said.
Reports of bedridden patients being secured to their beds have increased over the past year, Philenews reports. The usual answer from state services is that circumstances dictated this practice, or that the decision was taken because the patient, usually elderly, posed a danger to him or herself.
Management of patients in a busy hospital ward is of undoubtedly eased when patients can be confined to their beds, and possibly treated with anti-anxiety medications, however, the practice raises ethical questions, and questions of human dignity, as well as whether public trust in state-run medical care is well placed.
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Mail
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Mail
Source
