Help me get my husband the rehab he needs

I am what you might call.. A desperate wife.

 

I feel completely stuck, exhausted and quite honestly beaten, after weeks of fighting to get my husband the rehab he so desperately needs. It's like wading through treacle and we hit barrier after barrier because he is in a hospital that doesn't know how to treat him. They call him an outlier, which basically means, ’we don't know what to do with him’

 

Eight weeks ago, my lovely husband, Martin suffered a traumatic brain injury. At the time of the injury, which appeared to be a fractured skull, he remained conscious and so was taken to a general hospital rather than a neuro one. This hospital was 200 miles from our home and had no neuro expertise. He was stuck in resuss on a trolley for 3 days and then moved onto an orthopaedic ward. I watched him deteriorate each day to the point he didn't know who I was, or who he was. We know now this is because he had 5 bleeds in his brain.

 

I had to battle to get him repatriated to a hospital closer to home, even ringing bed managers myself, but sadly in moving to Hinchingbrook, he went from frying pan to fire. I just say at this point, the nursing team has been amazing, it's the lack of ownership, expertise and end to end process that creates the constant state of flux.

 

 

The journey has been 8-week catalouge of errors which includes being told he would be discharged on day 3, despite him being unable to walk or speak properly at that stage. I was told to drive him home and take him to the GP;

 

We were then told he had 5 cancerous brain tumours which was totally devastating, only to be advised days later that this was a mistake and the tumours were brain bleeds;

 

It has taken until week 5 to get brain injury unit pathway funding in place and then a further 3 weeks to secure a place due to a number of administrative errors. At one point we were told unless we accepted a place in Cambridge ABI, some 130 miles from our house, they would discharge Martin and leave him to it.

 

Martin should have transferred to Bexhill on Wednesday 4th August, the day after myself and the kids reloacted to Chichester. Instead, we were told the night before his transfer that there had been another admin error. You can see my reaction here https://www.instagram.com/tv/CSH_2Iro_qw/?utm_medium=copy_link

I am told this was due to a quibble around an additional £50 per week that the ABI wanted! So on moving day, I spent 3-hours on the phone trying to figure out what was happening. On Thursday 4th, we were advised the ABI at Bexhill couldn't place him at all.

 

So, we are 8 weeks down the line. Martin has lost sight in his right eye. We have no idea what he can and can't do safely as he has not been assessed by any neuro experts. We know he doesn't need to be in hospital and the endless waiting due to poor process and management will be having an impact on his future outcome.

 

I feel totally desperate to get him the help he needs. Martin said today he feels like he is being ignored and like he doesn't count! Nobody should feel like that.

 

He was about to start a new job, ironically to fix NHS broken processes, but as he hasn't started, he is without income. He
had 10 months without income during
covid too. I am self employed and have already taken 8 weeks off as a result.

 

The cost of private rehab is immense but I am starting to feel it’s our only option.

 

If you can help in anyway, please do. The kids and I want our family back together.

 

With gratitude,

 

Angela, Finley and Coral xx