Why is it so difficult to help some people?

IN the early part of this year I required back-to-back knee operations which meant that I was a guest of the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading for several weeks. My experience was somewhat revelatory as I was continually brought up against the full extremes of human behaviours. Again and again I asked myself, “Why is it so difficult to help some people?”

Let us first be super-positive about the staff of the Royal Berkshire Hospital. They are truly magnificent. They are drawn from the nations of the world but co-operate unconditionally, with smiles and total respect for each other and their patients.

However, would be that some of their patients reciprocated their attitudes! All too often abusive expletives pervade the corridors and wards as patient staff and nurses try to look after those in their care. No effort is ever made to chastise or correct these patients for their foul mouths.

As I observed on too many occasions, staff could be blissfully at home in Kathmandu, Nairobi, Manila et al, one week and the next week in Reading being verbally abused by a patient.

As we are all aware, our acute hospitals do have long-term stay patients who can be difficult to return into their own homes with care packages or to alternative locations due to personal circumstances.

These long-term stayers can disrupt the rest of compliant patients by selfishly “socialising” into the night and resist the guidance of staff to return to their wards so that friction can arise. Unbelievable but true and occurring nightly. Is it that boredom breeds selfishness?

Last but not least of my experiences was the arrival of a middle-aged man who lived on the streets of Reading and brought much unexpected drama to the ward. Although badly beaten by a street gang he insisted on departing the hospital every day for the Reading hostelries after uncoupling himself from his drip.

On two days he collected his Giro cheque via his girlfriend’s bank account and embarked on a spending spree.

At night he would return and ask for a cup of tea and toast with jam to complete his perfect day. After five days of “hotel” living, he had a seizure and had to be resuscitated by a “shock team” of 12 staff.

Needless to say I asked to be moved to an alternative ward as each day had become an episode of EastEnders, thereby affecting my recovery! How is it that one selfish person can affect the hospital so dramatically but remain so uncorrected?

On my collection from hospital by my son, I was confronted by a sleeping security man. Not only was he enabling the “escape” of my vagrant friend but he was in no fit state to stop any entry to the hospital by undesirable people.

I am so grateful to the staff who cared for me and only wish that they were benefiting from the respect and protection they deserve. I felt it my duty to feed back my observations to the chief executive but only had a non-committal matron on the telephone as a pacifying response! Is this indicative of the safeguarding support the board of the Royal Berkshire Hospital gives its staff?

In modern Britain have we all got used to the stories of poorly behaved children in schools, of people who help us from firefighters to police, from nurses to paramedics all being regularly abused — physically or mentally — in the discharge of their duties? Social media and “dirty” politics all contribute to normalising our abuse of each other. Is it too late to change? Are civilised behaviours a relic of a bygone golden age — or am I just dreaming?