VHI did nothing to ease my hospital ordeal

I WISH to add my experience as a member of VHI for 50 years to that of Kay Doyle (January 11).

I had an accident on Patrick St in Cork in October 2009 when I tripped and landed on the road. I had to be removed by ambulance and gardaí had to stop the traffic. I was rescued off the road and taken to CUH.

This all happened at about noon on Tuesday, October 13. I then was put on was a trolley. I was X-rayed during that afternoon and it was confirmed my hip “was gone” and my ribs and arm badly bruised.

I was put back on the trolley, fasting as I might be operated on. I was on that trolley for almost 70 hours in that condition — in the clothes I had on for 70 hours, and without food, as I had to be left fasting, on Tuesday/Wednesday and Thursday evening, at 6 o’clock. Each day a member of the staff came and said: “You won’t be operated on today and the kitchen is closed.”

All those 70 hours I received no meals from the kitchen. I could drink water between 6pm and 12 midnight. It was no surprise I collapsed after the operation and could not be moved from the theatre on that Friday morning. The anaesthetist was recalled and when he looked at my chart he said no food all those days was the main cause of the problem.

I recovered, but it is a well-established medical fact that 48 hours is the maximum for a patient to be left without surgery with a broken hip. After that, recovery is slowed and hospitalisation is prolonged beyond the normal time.

I was 13 days in hospital on this account and it was no help to my long term recovery. I still have to have physiotherapy regularly.

What help was VHI to me? I don’t think I should be operated on before my turn, but I should have been free to locate a hospital who would look after me in my sorry state but I could not do so. Being a VHI customer was more like a sentence than a facility.

I would like to think as a result of their effort, somebody could be saved a similar experience.

Joan Cronin

Macroom

Co Cork