Get Well Cards - Hazard Alert !

'Ban' on greeting cards at Frenchay Hospital:

"Nurses have told elderly patients not to put up 'get well soon' cards on a ward at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, UK.

John Nickolls sent his aunt Edna a card to cheer her up after she fell at her home.

But when he visited her on ward 107 she told him she had sent the card home because she was forbidden from putting it up beside her bed.

Mr Nickolls, who lives in Brislington, said during a previous visit he had been told he could not take flowers on to the ward.
A spokesman for the hospital said there was no blanket ban on cards or flowers, but flowers were discouraged because they could clutter lockers and hamper cleaning. They are banned in intensive care and wards where there is electrical equipment at patients' bedsides.
He said senior nurses would ask for cards to be moved if they were taking up too much space.

Mr Nickolls, 73, noticed there were no cards on the ward during his visit, which “stunned him”. He said: “We wanted to cheer her up and there aren't many things you can give to someone who is ill.“I thought it was taking away something very important from someone who wasn't very well.

“If I was on a ward, I'd like to receive cards.

“Frenchay is a wonderful hospital but it seems a shame people can't receive cards or flowers.

“They could maybe put the cards and flowers in an area away from the beds.”

Mr Nickolls, a retired fundraiser, said when his aunt was first in hospital he took some flowers in but a senior nurse stopped him and explained plants were banned “for health and danger reasons”.

He said: “We had never heard of this before and can only assume it is due to any bugs in the flowers or vases being knocked over.

“We asked if they could be left in a dayroom or nurses' quarters but this was also rejected, and they wouldn't dispose of them so the alternative was to bin them or bring them home.” "

Source: This is Bristol