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Camden New Journal - HEALTH by DAN CARRIER
Published: 6 March 2008

Ivy and Les Kemp before he was admitted to the Royal Free Hospital.
Yesterday (Wednesday) he moved to Marie Curie Hospice in Belsize Park

‘When you’re old, they act like you should disappear’

Given just four weeks to live, war hero Les Kemp has spent three of them waiting to go home

LES Kemp has always been on the frontline. Fighting as a private throughout the Second World War, he was cut down by a hail of machine-gun bullets.
One leg was amputated and he still has scars on the other one that tell the same tale.
The 84-year-old war veteran has been in and out of hospital throughout his life.
A series of heart attacks began 30 years ago, which lead to triple bypass surgery, and last month doctors at the Royal Free Hospital discovered his prostate cancer had spread into his lungs.
He was given four weeks to live, four weeks ago.
With Mr Kemp’s life- force fading fast, his devoted wife Ivy was determined to take him back to their home in Shirlock Road, Gospel Oak, fast. But a mix-up over beds has meant they spent three weeks mired in a hospital ward.
She said: “On our 58th wedding anniversary, a nurse told us he was going home. I had not brought any clothes. But when I told them no hospital bed had been delivered to our home we were told we had to wait.
“My husband dissolved into tears, not something I have seen him do – he is normally fun-loving with a great sense of humour.
“But all these disappointments have left him so low.”
She added: “It is the only time in my life I have wished to be rich enough to move him to a private hospital.”
It took three weeks for the bed to be delivered.
With hospital bed-spaces at a premium, Mrs Kemp could not understand the delay.
She said her husband had been treated with inexcusable indignity and blames a confused and crumbling system.
She said: “The main trouble at the Royal Free is not the standard of medical care, which is exceptional. The problem is that there is no co-ordination between the hospital and the district nurses.
“We have no complaints about the medical care. For three weeks he was just lying there and they were saying he could go home if he wanted to.
“But first we didn’t have the commode, then we needed the oxygen. Eventually both were delivered without prior notice. Then there was the delay getting the bed.
“Even when we finally went down to the discharge lobby, we were still left waiting for more than an hour on a chilly day. There were no blankets.
“I would like those involved to look up the word ‘comfortable’ in the dictionary. I’m sure it does not define the treatment he has put up with.”
The story of how they met could have been plucked from a scene from the recent blockbuster romantic film Atonement. Huddled in a bomb shelter in Highbury Underground station, they got chatting. Mr Kemp went away to fight in the war and when he returned they moved to Shirlock Road.
Mrs Kemp said: “It just feels like when you are old people treat you like it would be better if you just disappeared off the face of the planet.
“My husband has paid 43 years of National Insurance and I think he should be treated with the respect he deserves.”

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