A FERMANAGH patient has been singing the praises of the Hospital at Home service and the South West Acute Hospital.
The Fermanagh resident fell ill at home and when their condition worsened they decided it was best to ring an ambulance.
Within approximately 20 minutes the paramedic team arrived and after their initial assessment, rushed the patient to hospital on blue lights.
On arrival, in due course the patient joined the long queue in the corridor of the emergency department.
“Amid the chaos due to overcrowding in the department, the doctors and nurses worked frantically to try to establish what was causing my deteriorating condition and commenced intense treatment,” they said.
“As a bed became available, I was transferred to a ward and continued intense treatment by those poor overworked and over stressed doctors and nurses and quite honestly I have not one derisive word to say against them.”
When the time came to be discharged from hospital, the patient was informed that they would still require treatment at home and it would be carried out by the Hospital at Home Team.
Hospital at Home provides Consultant led, hospital level care for acute conditions in a patient’s own home. It is a community-based, secondary care service providing intensive high-level care for a short episode through multidisciplinary healthcare team-working.
It aims to deliver care to patients in their usual place of residence, whether a domiciliary setting or care home, for conditions that would normally require inpatient care in an acute hospital bed.
A service that the patients had not heard of before, “I assume there are lots of people out there who are not aware that such a service even exists,” they said.
“Without prejudice I can say, ‘Oh! what a service’ and Oh! what a team’. That team, Hospital at Home, continued my complex and intense treatment in such a professional manner.
“Every aspect of my condition was initially explained to me in simple but informative terms so that I could easily understand how their system worked before that wonderful team got to work.”
The patient expressed that the courtesy, the kindness and their pleasant attitude along with their highly skilled expertise was a shining example of what Hospital at Home is all about.
“They are covering all areas of Fermanagh regardless how remote or otherwise that area may be, bringing their professional and expert service right into patients’ homes which is so important to so many people,” the patient expressed.
A spokesperson from the Western Trust said, “Since the inception of the Hospital at Home team in the Southern Sector of the Western Trust in April 2021, the service has provided an acute hospital standard of care to almost 700 people in the local community,” they added.
“In considering this evidence, alongside the positive patient experiences of the team, the Trust has now put in place recurrent funding to this service for the Fermanagh area. By providing an expert level of acute care and treatment will ensure that where it is safe to do so, patients may remain at home and receive their care.”
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