[jaysay]

Originally Posted by jambutty

A bit like District Nurses in days gone by.

What goes around comes around I guess.

But in this day and age where money is god, is it cost effective? How many patients would a Community Matron see during an 8 hours day? 8, 10, 12 at the most unless her charges lived close to each other.

If her charges were all in one place, like a hospital, couldn’t that Community Matron attend to more patients during those 8 hours?

When I was in hospital with a pulmonary embolism once the daily blood clot busting drug was injected, the vampires came around and took some blood and I was given the prescribed dose of Warfarin I was left to my own devices. I spent most of my daylight time in the hospital grounds and only appeared on the ward at meal times and when required. Of course the ward nurses knew where I was when I was off ward but really it was a waste of a bed.

From the patient’s and their relatives view Community Matrons has to be great. I’m all for it in spite of the cost effective point.

The idea JB is to keep people like myself OUT of hospital. The fact is as soon as my condition was stable when I was in recently, both the hospital and myself wanted to get out for two reasons, first heaven knows what else you can pick up as an in patient, especially when your imune system is very low because of high dose steriod treatment and secondly you pick up far better in your own environment. As far as the cost is concerned, to me it would be far more cost effective to see people in their own home than in an hospial bed, god knows what it cost for a days stay these days