A frail, dementia-stricken Lanarkshire gran was dismissed from hospital with a cannula still in her arm, her family claims.
Shakuntala Gupta was admitted to University Hospital Hairmyers one week ago with bladder and bowel issues.
The 76-year-old was discharged and taken back to her East Kilbride home by ambulance on Monday.
Awaiting her arrival were her son, Shalabh and his wife, Ritu, Lanarkshire Live reports.
The couple were horrified to discover that a cannula was still in her arm, stuck on with a plaster.
A cannula is a plastic tube with a needing inside that's inserted into a patient's body to help administer fluids or medication.
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Fuming Ritu raced back to hospital and a nurse was sent to the house to apologise and remove the needle.
Shalabh said it is incredulous that no-one in the hospital noticed that the cannula had not been removed from his mother's arm and fears that, had he not spotted it, she could have dislodged it in her sleep and suffered blood loss.
Enraged that 'anything could have happened' to his mum who was treated just 'like a piece of flesh', Shalabh has pledged to make a formal complaint about the 'carelessness' and is considering seeking legal advice over what he claims is medical negligence.
The dad-of-two said: "I did not want to remove it myself, because I'm not an expert.
"When my wife went to the hospital to pick up my mum's medication and explain about the cannula, staff said sorry and put their head in their hands. A nurse from the same ward she'd been admitted to came to the house and took the cannula off. She told her she was sorry they sent her home with it. My mum was clearly distressed."
Mr Gupta claims that staff relied on the family to feed his mother three times a day and administer her medication and were not looking after his mother correctly.
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"They were not cleaning her properly in the ward," he added.
"She had been drooling and I had to take a hand towel and clean her mouth and neck because there was saliva everywhere. There must be other people suffering, too. They do not care enough. To them, it is just a piece of flesh, and they do not care."
Mr Gupta also alleges medics didn't listen to him when he told them about "episodes" that his mother had been experiencing.
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He claims that, only when he showed them a video he'd made of her enduring an apparent seizure, was she diagnosed with epilepsy and prescribed the appropriate medication.
"They would not even care to listen to me," Mr Gupta said.
"Why do you always have to do videos and pictures? And why make such stupid mistakes with patients with advanced dementia who have been admitted before? It is negligence at its peak. "
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It's not the first time Mr Gupta has raised a complaint with NHS Lanarkshire about his ailing mother's treatment at University Hospital Hairmyres.
Lanarkshire Live reported in January how Mrs Gupta's horrified family claimed to have found her alone, lying on an unscreened bed by an open door in a Hairmyres day room.
Her son claimed she was 'semi-naked and soaked in urine'.
The space, which is where staff go to eat, was used to store furniture and packaging and to load trolleys of water jugs destined for wards.
When asked to comment on Shakuntala's move to Hairmyres’ staff dining area, Lise Axford, chief of nursing services at the hospital expressed regret.
She said: "Unfortunately, it was necessary to accommodate this patient for a four-hour period in the ward day room. The patient’s family were appraised of the reasons for the move at the time.
“We ask patients and families to raise any concerns with staff at the time so they can resolve any issues.
“Our patient affairs team tried to make contact with the complainant to clarify information and to obtain consent to progress the complaint but no response was received.”
Saying that the hospital was experiencing 'extremely high demand for inpatient beds', she stressed that anyone with concerns should raise them through the complaints process via the patient affairs team for investigation.
Regarding Monday's alleged events, Shalabh Gupta claims he lodged a formal complaint online, but maintains he received no acknowledgement from NHS Lanarkshire and he claims no action was taken as a result of his grievance.
Lise Axford said: "Due to patient confidentiality, we cannot discuss individual cases.
“We regret any instance where someone feels we have failed to provide the highest standard of care.
"We have a complaints process via our patient affairs team and we would always encourage anyone to contact us in this way if they wish to raise any concerns to allow them to be fully investigated."
It comes after English legal firm Slee Blackwell reached an out-of-court settlement for the widow of a man who died in June 2019 after being discharged from St James University Hospital in Leeds with a cannula, which had been inserted by paramedics, still in place.
A post mortem found that an infection caused by the cannula had resulted in a decline in his renal function.
