You know that feeling, when you think you’ve heard it all and then…you realise you haven’t got anywhere close. I had such an experience the other morning on a chill Harlyn Beach having been introduced to a woman in a red anorak with a small dog who used to be a friend of my Padstow chum John. She’s a nurse who works nights in a hospital somewhere on the peninsula and what she told Kim left the pair of us wondering what kind of people can do such a thing?

She spoke of a  patient who has been on her ward for some weeks having successfully come through cancer surgery. It had looked bleak the day he’d been admitted but a combination of NHS expertise, his inner strength and determination combined with a fair share of good luck brought him through to the delight of our wind blown informant and her colleagues.

You can imagine how his family must have felt, the father and grandfather formerly upon the brink now, against all the odds in remission, enjoying a new lease of life for a new year? So pause because whatever you might have thought is wrong on every level. While the patient was recovering from the surgery his family contacted the council to inform it that their late father and grandfather to others would not be requiring his council home any more and the front door key would be returned forthwith. And it didn’t stop there. Having effectively made the patient homeless his family, presumably over an unspecified number of days during the season of goodwill disposed of all of his possessions, every last thing said our informant with the expression of one uncertain of the principles many of us hold dear , some items sold for profit perhaps (if not why?) with the remains donated to charity. 

She went on to explain that her patient was now homeless with his remaining worldly possessions comprising of nothing more than the clothes he’d been wearing when admitted to hospital at the back end of last year. Was her patient speaking with to family? She couldn’t be sure but had heard from colleagues that some of his relatives had been seen on the ward, presumably unhappy with the accomplishment of modern oncology.

If you’re struggling to get your head around that unsettling glimpse of the dark side of humanity listen on.

“We’re in what we call the ‘dumping season’ said our nurse perhaps used to maintaining an enigmatic non partisan expression when all decency is collapsing around her and her colleagues. “It’s in the run up to Christmas. Families bring elderly relatives to A&E and just leave them.”

Due to illness?

“No. Just elderly and a bit slower and a bit less able. It’s as if they don’t want to have to bother with them when there are other things to do.” Sort of like, Christmas dinner and parties? She nodded and almost grimaced. 

These older family members are left in hospital ”bed blocking” until a care package is established for them. 

These families, I speculate choosing my words carefully, could they be described as the financially oppressed working class? Not at all. The dumping season applies to families across the economic and cultural spectrum.

“They are all white. It might be because English families don’t value family togetherness as much as other cultures where the elderly are respected.

“It’s one of the reasons the NHS is under such pressure. All those elderly people dumped on us are bed blocking taking up places we would otherwise use for patients who need them.”

I asked what ‘dumping’ and the  patient whose family has left him homeless and bereft does for her faith in human nature? She offers a wan smile and walks off to retrieve her little dog’s ball.