Hospital treatment for my kitchen pneumonia was 'excellent'

A pensioner who was treated in hospital for pneumonia in his own kitchen described it as “terrible”.

The day after Sean Daly, 78, was discharged from Daisy Hill Hospital, he underwent an electrocardiogram (ECG) and an IV drip on a coat hanger.

The retired barber said he was glad to be able to help free up beds.

Southern Health Trust said its home acute care services had prevented almost 14,000 hospital admissions over 10 years.

According to the trust, this has enabled around 2,000 people to be discharged from hospital early.

Daly, who worked as a barber for 52 years, had been suffering from lower back pain and had been feeling “very ill” for about a week before collapsing in February.

He developed a fever and his family took him to Daisy Hill's emergency department, where he was admitted.

Once his condition stabilized, the next day the hospital asked about the possibility of home treatment.

“A nurse came in and asked me how I felt about receiving the same treatment at home.

“I said, ‘Yes, please.’ If anyone has the opportunity to go home, I will go home,” he said.

Daly said he appreciates having the medical team, including pharmacists, “drop by” and it feels like family coming to visit.

Dr Patricia McCaffrey, medical director of aged services at the Southern Trust, said more staff and resources were needed to sustain and grow home care services across Northern Ireland. .

“We need additional staff and more resources and a shift of resources from acute hospitals to the community,” Dr. McCaffrey said.

Acute care refers to care provided in hospitals by nurses, doctors, physical therapists, and pharmacists.

Although the Southern Trust's home care service has been in operation for 10 years, Dr McCaffrey says it is not yet considered an established model of care or adequately funded.

A similar model to enable more people to receive treatment at home has been rolled out at three other health trusts, but not at the Northern Trust.

Specialist nurse Catherine Haburn said it made sense to treat people like Ms Daley at home to reduce pressure on emergency departments.

Habern, who joined the Southern Trust team in 2017, was expected to make around six home visits a day and have regular contact with Daisy Hill experts.

She has worked as a nurse for around 15 years and said the region was seeing a rise in the number of older people with multiple medical conditions, putting pressure on general practices (GPs) and emergency services.

Mr Habern said Mr Daly underwent the same tests that would be done on the hospital ward, but because he was at home, the risk of delirium and nosocomial infection was reduced.

“We were there several times a day when he was on IV antibiotics,” she said.

“We took his blood and blood pressure, checked his medications and just watched him closely.

“We are very busy, covering the whole of the Southern Trust.” [area] And although we hired staff on a large scale, we found that older people preferred to be cared for at home. ”