Gerald Okpara was readmitted twice in eighteen months, both times inside three weeks of going home, both times for reasons that were visible in advance.

The fortnight after discharge is where things come apart, and the interventions that help are unglamorous: a phone call, a medicines check, one visit.

Strength at eighty

Nothing here is about extending life. All of it is about what the remaining years contain, which is a different question and is asked out loud.

Nothing about this is clever. It’s a phone call. We just weren’t making it.

Samuel Reyes, clinical pharmacy

Fear as the obstacle

Fear of falling causes more loss of function than most falls do. People stop moving, decondition, and then fall.

No readmissions in fourteen months. “Somebody rang,” he says. “That’s the entire intervention.”

Contributing writer

Samuel Reyes

A demonstration byline created for this prototype. Not a real writer, and not a clinician.

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