Disabilities

Hi, my name is Saheb Singh and I work for a charity called Middle Sex Association for the Blind. My role within the organisation is a Senior Operations Manager but I'd just like to tell you briefly about a lady who has now passed away unfortunately. She wasn't born blind but she became blind at around the age of 60. She lived till she was 90 and I just want to briefly tell you about her hospital experience. She went into hospital and she had a trip and fall. She was completely blind, lived alone on her own. She was 90 years old, as I have said, and she had full mobility. She kept quite active, walking in and out and around her home, even though she was completely blind, but she used a Zimmer frame. When she went into hospital, however, because of the trip that she had, she was placed on a bed, on a stretcher, and she was left on that bed. She was only in hospital for less than 10 days and as a result of not having any mobility or any movement in the hospital when she was discharged and released to go home she wasn't able to walk again and that caused her a lot of discomfort because this was a very active and independent lady who lived alone at 90 who was blind she'd had nobody to turn to and when she was taken into hospital as a fall and became bedridden it really set her back and I think as a result of that her body became weaker and her health started to deteriorate. So what I'm trying to say is while the work that we do in hospitals is amazing I feel it's really important that we need to take extra care of those who are really vulnerable on top of their other ailments that they have so visual impairment being one of them but also their mobility as well. Another gentleman has recently gone into hospital who's completely blind, he has vascular dementia and the situation is that he gets quite confused quite easily. He's in hospital at the moment as we're recording this and he informed me that he has no one to talk to, he doesn't know what's going on, he hasn't got any idea who the staff or the nurses are and he's in an environment which is completely unnatural to him. I think it would help greatly if somebody were able to come up to him and just remind him where he is and if he has a drink of water by his side or whether he has a button by his side to call a member of staff or if there's anything else that he needs because this is somebody who can't see. So somebody who's just lying on a bed for a long amount of time and isn't aware of their surroundings and can be forgetful of their surroundings, I think it's really important to look after those people even more so.