Thursday, December 21, 2006

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital: Declan is hospitalised with pneumonia and discharged unwell back into the streets no more than 42 hours after admission



An hour and a half after my previous blog post yesterday afternoon, Declan was discharged unwell from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital back into the streets in freezing weather and dense fog - no more than 42 hours after admission to the hospital for pneumonia.

The discharge report states that Declan's admission on Monday night, 18 December, was due to "Interstitial Pneumonia". It further states that he was admitted "... with cough and shortness of breath. Felt feverish with no sweats. Productive cough for 4/7 with brown sputum. Chest pain, worse on breathing, worse on inspiration. Has not been eating due to lack of finance. No loss of appetite, no weight loss. Did have episode of loss of consciousness, witnessed by partner." His loss of consciousness occurred on Sunday at 7.00am, whilst he vomited all over his clothes on a bus. He could have easily died had I not been with him.

We believe Declan's pneumonia was brought on by two things. The first thing was a virus he contracted from one of the 30 homeless guys he shares a floor with at night; since last Friday, we have been sleeping in rolling shelters run by the West London Churches Homeless Concern (WLCHC) across two West London boroughs. The second was stress. We couldn't afford the luxury of resting and taking it easy over the weekend after a court clerk left out of Judge Walker's order of 11 December that we were granted leave to appeal his decision not to allow us apply for a judicial review against the Department for Work and Pensions. Declan had to file against the order we were given by 4.00pm on Monday - having been given three days upon receipt of the order to do so - or risk having his case dismissed because he had not filed within seven days of the date the order was made.

Last night, having been discharged from hospital, Declan was too unwell to eat the meal the rolling shelter provided; on Wednesdays, we sleep in a makeshift shelter at the back of the Catholic Holy Trinity Church in Brook Green. Instead, he went straight into his sleeping bag, coughing non-stop to the understandable annoyance of some who were eating. For us, it's not at all inconceivable that he was discharged earlier than he should have been because the Metropolitan Police and/or the secret services were in some way involved. When he was discharged yesterday at 2.30pm, we knew immediately that we had to find some way of getting out of the freezing cold and dense fog for as much of the afternoon as possible - in an area we were unfamiliar with - before taking two buses to the next shelter for the night. We must get to each shelter before 8.00pm or we don't get in and our names go to the bottom of the long list of people who want to get in on WLCHC's winter shelter programme.

We wonder what sort of reputation Chelsea and Westminster Hospital would have if everyone with serious respiratory illness was discharged from the hospital so unwell. We can only hope there will be no major setbacks and it's relatively downhill from here, the winter weather and being homeless notwithstanding.

From My Picks:

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