Lindy Kato (Writer)

Almost exactly two years ago she broke her hip and never recovered. I broke my ankle the day that Mum broke her hip. In fact I broke my ankle because Mum broke her hip. I was angry and distracted, her hip was a catalogue of disasters, my ankle was a moment’s inattention combined with fact that the plywood masquerading as decking was neither nailed nor screwed to the sub-frame and hung massively over the edge.

Mum’s high blood pressure was the result of two long bus rides and a language barrier. Buses are supposed to ‘kneel down’ for people with lower mobility – which her walking frame should indicate, whenever I spoke to her she always moaned that they do not bother and she has to struggle up the steps. Her blood pressure was low her whole life, and if the random doctor that gets allocated these days, had bothered to look at her file, he might have had her wait, and get a nurse to take it again before bowling in to fix it. Dad found her on the floor in the night but could not get her up, any ambulance was hours away and booked out with COVID cases and so he phoned my Brother.

Eventually the paramedics turned up and found that she fell because she was dizzy, she was dizzy because her blood pressure was in her boots. I have no idea how long she was on the floor and I couldn’t find out because by the time I tried talking to her she had already been given morphine. She has an alert on her notes that she should not be given opioids of any kind.

After that she was as mad as a meat cleaver whenever I phoned, claiming she had back surgery because she had two coccyx’s, a hip replacement and her foot turned around, all bonus operations. One day a visiting nurse asked me why she had been given medication for high blood pressure when clearly it had made her ill as well as resulting in a broken hip. I am on the other side of the world!! Then it occurs to me that the nurse wouldn’t know that. In the hospital Mum caught COVID-19 because hospitals are full of sick people. My Brother had told me that they didn’t have any unbroken beds so hers couldn’t be made to sit up. It’s a wonder she didn’t get pneumonia. She’s a tough old bird and survived…which was the worst thing.

It all sets me thinking about the UK and the health system, it is free which is great and everywhere there are stories about exceptional heroism and well beyond the call of duty commitment during the horrendous times of a pandemic overwhelming the system, during any time in fact, nurses and Doctors always go above and beyond.

Social welfare accepted that my parents were not competent. Clearly this has been the case for a while. Although Dad is fit and healthy and could go on another ten years, he couldn’t look after Mum.

The thing is that social welfare would only take them both into care to force the sale of their house to pay for it. My Brother had no control over the sale of the house or where they were put. They went into dementia care where according to my Dad (backed up by my Brother), the residents are all cabbages. The point is that Mum is only this way because she broke her hip after being given medication for high blood pressure she didn’t have and was then given morphine despite the alert in her notes.

At the time Dad said he said he would live in a van rather than with the cabbages. I never thought it would come to this, but Mum didn’t improve, her leg was swollen and infected, she never walked again. Whenever I phoned I couldn’t get any sense from her. The good thing is that she died in hospital, she was supposed to go back to the care home with a ‘peace’ plan, which I think means die the fu@# in peace. But a different Doctor said that there was more peace in the hospital where the nurses caring for her were qualified and not on minimum wage. She died in the quiet of a single room, with expertly administered pain relief.

We discussed whether we should tell Dad, his dementia is now much worse but in the end we thought that someone would let the cat out of the bag and he might not have family support while he took it in.

So I was on the phone at 2:00 am this morning as he described his grief, how come he couldn’t save her, how would he cope without her? Then he was distracted by the belt that was holding up his trousers, he took it off to show it to me. He had found it in the corridor, it has someone else’s name on it but he reckons he can get that off. Then he says
“I don’t know where your Mother is, she would love to talk to you”.
My Brother gently reminds him that she passed away last night.
He is crushed by the news, how come he couldn’t save her, how would he cope without her?