Marelle

– Caringbah, NSW

My mother is aged over 100 now and was admitted to Hospital for 10 days last year. Unfortunately they have aged care patients mixed in with dementia patients and this was too much for her and some others in her ward as some of the people with dementia were yelling out all night that they wanted to die. She took weeks to recover when she was discharged. Surely there can be a separate ward for people who are elderly as it is so important when they are so vulnerable and unwell that they get some sleep. I did ask if she could be moved to another ward to get some sleep but was advised by the nurse in charge that all wards for older people were integrated with people with dementia. I am unsure if this policy is common to other public hospitals but I believe it needs reviewing. While the doctors there were wonderful elderly people particularly do need to be able to rest and get some sleep to enable healing to occur.