‘The staff on Ward 38 are so special... there is so much pride and care, and sense’

WHEN Karen Appleyard first heard York Hospital bosses were thinking of closing down Ward 38 - the neurology ward - she felt physically sick.

Her voice still gets all emotional and trembly when she thinks about it.

"I was absolutely shocked and saddened," she said. "And then I felt physically sick. I just thought: if I ever have to go back into hospital, I don't want to have to go on to a general ward'."

To most readers of The Press, the possible closure of Ward 38 is just another in a long and rather depressing series of health cuts.

To Karen, it would mean the loss of a huge chunk of her life.

The 40-year-old, who lives near Clifton Green, York, spent eight months on the ward in 2004: eight months of hell, in which her body seemed to be gradually shutting down.

Her right arm was paralysed, she was sick repeatedly, and suffered from double vision and muscle spasms. She had numbness plus pins and needles and, yet at the same time, every nerve in her body seemed to be on fire, so that the slightest touch on the skin of her arm or face caused a cascade of nerve pain that spread down her body.

"If a hair just brushed my face, the nerves were like acid, running across my face and out of my eyes," she says, struggling to describe the sensation.

Her whole nervous system - brain stem, brain and optic nerves - became inflamed, and she lost the use of her right eye entirely.

Despite her awful symptoms, doctors were tearing their hair out trying to work out what was wrong with her.

Test after test came back normal, she said. She began to despair of ever knowing what was the matter, and that was almost the worst thing of all.

The only things that kept her going through those hellish eight months were her husband, Clive, who visited her every day in hospital, and the devoted care of the specialist staff on Ward 38.

They were, Karen says, absolutely fabulous.

She'd had experience of being on a general medical ward earlier, and it hadn't been good, she says.

The first two days after she arrived in hospital paralysed, were spent on a general ward. A meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding was put in front of her. She was then left to eat it alone - no one came to help.

"I was paralysed. I couldn't even cut it up," she says. "In the end, the son of the person in the bed across from me came to help me."

On another occasion, during an earlier admission to a hospital general ward, she was left on her own to take a shower, even though she was vomiting repeatedly and had to take a sick bowl with her. "I was sick all over the shower," she says. "And I had to clean it up myself."

She doesn't really blame the staff on general medical wards at the hospital. She knows how busy and under pressure they are.

But Ward 38 was so different, she says. There, the staff were patient, and kind, and full of understanding.

On that ward, Karen says, she never once was made to feel like just another patient; just a number. "I felt like a person," she says.

Many of the neurology patients who go to Ward 38 are almost helpless, Karen says; totally unable to look after themselves.

They include MS patients, those suffering from Motor Neurone Disease, stroke patients, and others who have suffered head traumas.

They need round-the-clock care, and often have to have everything done for them.

"The staff there are so special - and they have to be, because the patients on that ward need special care," Karen says.

"The nurses there know exactly what their patients need.

"One of the people opposite me had MS, for example, and another lady had a stroke. Each of them needed two people to change their bedding every day.

"They had to do everything for me. I have always been very independent and looked after myself but, while I was just about able to feed myself, they had to bathe me, and put me to bed.

"There is so much pride, and care, and sense, on that ward. Every single morning, each person on that ward was given a bed bath or a shower."

One incident in particular chokes her up.

Before being admitted to hospital, she and her husband had been invited to a party in memory of Caroline Stuttle, the York backpacker killed almost five years ago when she was pushed from a bridge in Bundaberg, Australia.

The staff on Ward 38 insisted on Karen going.

"They did my hair; they dressed me up in my evening gown; they put me in my wheelchair; and then my husband pushed me down the hospital's main corridor, me in my evening gown, him in his dinner jacket," she says.

You just wouldn't get that kind of care on a hard-pressed general medical ward, Karen says.

Which is why she believes it is absolutely vital Ward 38 is saved.

Her condition was eventually diagnosed as a very rare form of breast cancer, that involved no solid tumours.

Her symptoms had been caused by her own immune system turning on her.

Stimulated by the presence of cancer cells in her body, but unable to find a tumour to attack, it had attacked her central nervous system instead: her spine, her brain stem, her brain, and the peripheral nerves.

A course of gruelling chemotherapy brought the cancer under control, and restored her mobility. That meant she was able to go home.

She has since has a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction. But she is still blind in one eye, still on painkillers to control the pain caused by her condition, and still unable to walk far without help.

Worse, she fears the cancer could come back and affect her vital organs - kidneys, or liver. She is also prone to infections - a result of the chemotherapy - and has already had to return to hospital once.

She remains remarkably upbeat, and says she "takes each day as it comes".

But she is terrified at the thought of having to go back to hospital, and of being shunted on to a general medical ward where the staff don't have the expertise to look after her properly.

She hopes to meet York Hospital chief executive Jim Easton soon to discuss her concerns.

But she is not prepared to wait until then before speaking out.

"Eight months on a general medical ward? I couldn't do it. I don't think I would have survived it," she says.

"This ward mustn't be allowed to close.

"No general ward will be able to give the care patients on Ward 38 need."

Hospital boss issues patients' guarantee

Mike Proctor, York Hospital's director of nursing, stressed today no formal decision had yet been made to close Ward 38.

Even if a decision was made to go ahead with the closure, he added, the hospital would give an "absolute guarantee" that neurology patients were kept together, and they were cared for by the same dedicated team of nurses, doctors and physiotherapists that looked after them now.

Calling Ward 38 the neurology ward was, in any case, a bit of a misnomer, Mr Proctor stressed.

At any one time, up to half of the 13 beds were occupied by non-neurology patients.

One possibility being considered, he said, was combining neurology patients with patients on the acute stroke ward.

"The two groups of patients have very similar needs," he said.

He said he understood the concerns of Karen Appleyard and other neurology patients.

"But they need have no fear about the management of neurology patients in future.

"Whatever happens, they will be kept together as a group and will be cared for by the same team of nurses, physician and physiotherapists as they have on Ward 38."

Cuts cause ward closures

The Press initially broke the story about plans to shut Ward 38 on April 4.

It could become the fourth hospital ward scheduled for closure in the wake of a massive cut in income, we reported.

We had already, the previous month, broken the news that three other hospital wards - a 23-bed orthopaedic ward, a 19-bed ear, nose and throat ward and a 20-bed urology ward - were to shut, as hospital bosses struggled to cope with a £4 million drop in income from the debt-ridden North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust.

The jobs of about 100 staff were expected to be affected, although hospital bosses stressed they were trying to avoid the need for redundancies.

On Tuesday, we reported the reaction of MS patients to the news the neurology ward might close. The story has since been picked up by other local media.