Achi news desk-
Mrs McQuade, a nurse, said they had already exhausted their savings due to his illness and were now relying solely on her part-time salary and Mr McQuade’s sick pay as an IT specialist.
Mr McQuade, a quadriplegic who relies on an electric wheelchair, currently has a short-term funded place at Montrose Care Home in Paisley.
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The council-run facility is set to close in the coming months as part of cost-cutting measures voted by the Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) in March.
Renfrewshire Council has now offered Mr McQuade a ground floor one-bed council flat in Renfrew, although sources in the HSCP insist this is not linked to the closure of a care home as Mr McQuade’s placement there has always been temporary. .
However, the couple will have to furnish the property themselves and pay rent while Mrs McQuade and their daughters – aged nine and 12 – stay at the family home in Bishopton.
“If we can’t get the house converted, that’s the only option we have – but it’s an absolute nightmare,” said Mrs McQuade, 50.
“Our family is forced to live apart.”
The family’s misery began days before Christmas in December 2022.
Mr McQuade had been decorating his mother-in-law’s home when he noticed a small cut on his finger.
On December 22, she started feeling run down with an upset stomach and flu-like symptoms.
“To be honest, I thought it was ‘man-flu’,” said Mrs McQuade.
“Then, in the early hours of Christmas Eve, he woke me up and said ‘Look, I really don’t feel well, you’ll have to take me to hospital’.
“I said ‘what’s going on?’ and he said ‘I have a small cut in my finger and I think I have an infection’.”
Within hours of dropping her husband off at the accident and emergency department at the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) in Paisley, she phoned doctors to say he was being rushed into theater as they tried to save his finger.
By the afternoon, Mr McQuade was in intensive care and his wife was told that doctors did not expect him to survive to Christmas Day.
“That was all within about 14-15 hours of me dropping him off at the A&E,” said Mrs McQuade, who met her husband on a blind date arranged by a friend in 2001.
Tests revealed that Mr McQuade had Strep A – a bacterial infection – which triggered gangrene, where the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues and organs.
Doctors bombarded Mr McQuade with intravenous antibiotics as he went into multi-organ failure.
He almost died several times over the following weeks and, in February 2023, surgeons had to remove both of his legs below the knee, his left arm, and his right hand.
He was transferred to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow and then to Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where he remained until August 2023.
Mrs McQuade said her husband’s recovery had been hampered in part by the lack of specialist inpatient rehabilitation.
A spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said rehabilitation facilities were available for patients with Mr McQuade’s physical disabilities but could not comment on individual cases “due to patient confidentiality”.
He added: “Clinicians would have advised whether these were appropriate for Mr McQuade’s treatment plan.”
In August last year, Mr McQuade suffered a traumatic breakdown and had to be admitted to Leverndale psychiatric hospital, and then to Dykebar mental health facility in Paisley.
Following a series of wound infections which have meant he is still unable to be fitted for prosthetic limbs, Mr McQuade was readmitted to the RAH and from there to the Montrose care home.
Mrs McQuade said: “We were told that he would have a lot of rehabilitation, that he would come home in June, and as soon as his legs had healed he would be ‘on his feet’.
“What really happened is that there was no rehabilitation of impatience. His wounds have not healed yet.
“We were told that there would be modifications to the house – we haven’t had any.
“He’s in Montrose Care Home in Paisley at the moment, and now it’s closing. And we’re on our seventh social worker.”
Because of his wheelchair, Mr McQuade would have to live downstairs if he moved back to the family home in Bishopton.
However, there is currently no accessible bedroom or bathroom.
Mrs McQuade proposed converting the garage attached to the house into a bedroom for her husband and creating a wet room.
A private contractor told her this could easily be done at a cost of just under £20,000.
However, Mrs McQuade said they had been told they were ineligible for money.
Depending on household income, local authorities will cover between 80% and 100% of home adaptations where it is assessed as “priority need”.
Mrs McQuade said: “We can’t self-fund – our savings are gone.
“We used them because I was away with stress, trying to cope with everything that has happened. I only went back to work in August.
“We’ve been told we don’t qualify for anything. Scott was told he’s not a ‘priority’ because he could only ‘live in the living room’.”
“But he would have to wash in the sink in the toilet downstairs with carers coming in four times a day.”
Sources said other options, such as installing a stairlift and upstairs wet room, could be considered, and insisted the process was complicated by uncertainty over whether Mr McQuade wanted to move permanently to a council flat or return home.
A spokesman for HSCP Renfrewshire said: “We cannot comment on the details of individual cases.
“However, we are in ongoing discussions with Mr and Mrs McQuade and are working to support them in finding a solution to their circumstances, covering both the short and long term.”
Mrs McQuade says Finding Your Feet – an amputee charity founded by sepsis survivor Corinne Hutton – is “the only thing that’s been saved. [Scott] go”.
He said: “They have been very good at keeping in touch with him and he has been able to meet other bereaved people.
“There’s a camaraderie with that.”
She is now hoping to raise at least £500 for the Paisley-based charity by taking part in the Glasgow KiltWalk on April 28.
“We want to make sure no one else is left in the situation we are, because families don’t get the help when they need it,” said Mrs McQuade.
A spokesperson for Finding Your Feet said that issues related to housing for the lost “have been more common in recent years”.
He added: “Problems with living conditions and accessibility are by no means uncommon, but Scott is in the relatively unique position of losing both legs and hands rather than just one fracture.
“It literally makes life four times harder, and makes its demands, certainly in the early stages, extreme.
“Everything has to be done differently, and that’s scary when you have to figure out most of it yourself.
“We are in direct contact with the appropriate people to push for extended physical rehabilitation in Glasgow for cases like this and we are talking to our MP about the housing issue, for Scott, others who struggling now and any who have been lost in the future.”
The local MP, Gavin Newlands, has taken up Mr McQuade’s case with the HSCP.
He added that during a recent visit to Finding Your Feet he was concerned about the “lack of support” available to people with limb loss, including “access to rehabilitation, suitable accommodation, and financial support for those who require adaptations to his property”.
Mr Newlands said: “Obviously this is a serious situation for Mr McQuade and his family and the priority is to resolve the obstacles that appear to have occurred as quickly and as sensitively as possible, and whatever help I can give me happy to provide.
“Mr McQuade’s case, and the case of so many others, highlights the wider challenges that those who have been cut off and the role of our healthcare system in helping them meet those challenges, point I have raised it with the NHS NHS to see what else could be done to guarantee it. the best possible support.”
