Un-bloody-believable!!!!! I'm FURIOUS!!!

[RGPargy]

10 days ago i took DD up to the hospital for blood tests for a suspected nut allergy. After waiting an hour in one place, they told me i was in the wrong place and had to go to the ward. After waiting another 1.5 hours i was told to come back another day as they were too busy. So i went back the following day by an appointment and was in and out in 20 minutes.

So they stuck a needle in both DD's hands because they couldn't get anything from the first hand. She was so brave, bless her (she's only 9 months).

The doctor has just phoned and spoke to DP and they have told him that DD's blood "leaked" and so they haven't been able to do the tests!!! WHY ON EARTH HAS IT TAKEN THEM 10 F*CKIN DAYS TO TELL ME THIS??!!!!!!!!!

I'm absolutely hopping mad that they didn't tell me this when it actually happened so that i could have gone back up there and had it done again before now.

FFS!!!!!!!!



sorry, rant over. [oops]

[ElfOnTheTopShelf]

I am not surprised that you are furious.
I went into hospital a while ago for suspected appendicitis, and it took them 8 attempts to get blood from me, including from in the vein at the top of my leg.
Can she not have the blood drawn by your doctors and sent off?

[RGPargy]

8 attempts?? FFS!! What's wrong with them these days?!!

Unfortunately my GP doesn't have the facilities to draw the blood there as they need the smaller butterfly needles for babies i think. something like that anyway.

I'm not sure which day is worse to go - a friday or a monday! both are going to be equally heaving. I cant go on tuesday as i'm already busy and Wednesday i'm back at work! Bloody marvellous, eh?!

[Aniyan]

RGPargy - did they give you some anaesthetic cream to put on dd's hands before you went? Ds had to have blood taken when he was little (also for allergy tests) and he was prescribed some cream to numb the skin on his hands so the needle didn't hurt so much.

Doesn't help you with the hospital's incompetence, but might be worth looking into if you have to go back.

[RGPargy]

no they didn't put any cream on her. They said it was quicker if they just did it without. I didn't want to wait around for another 45 mins or so and to be fair to DD, she didn't cry at all so i dont think i'll ask them to use it this time either.

DP has just told me that apparently the blood leaked in transit between Medway Hospital and Ashford Hospital (which is where they perform the tests). GGRR!

[ummadam]

I would be furious too.

Having been on the other end of this what usually happens is some poor junior doctor will have been given the task of chasing up this result - after 3 days of wondering why it isn't on the system yet they call the lab, get put on hold and a very harrassed lab technician will tell them it will take a week for this result so be patient. At the end of the week they check again and still nothing so they call again and the lab tech agrees they can't find the sample in the lab and will call them back. Several hours later the call back to say they have found the forms and the sample leaked and could not be processed.

I used to hate that job - but having been to the lab and seeing that they literally had thousends of samples each day, I was eventually just amazed any turned up on time at all

Now that doesn't help you much but - call them and ask if you can have some emla or ametop (anaesthetic cream) to put on her hands before you get there (they can give you special clear plasters to go over the top then put socks on her hands and feet to stop her getting it off The downside of the cream is that it makes it harder to find the vein (which is already very difficult in 9months old - premature babies are a doddle compared to chubby toddler hands). the upside is that it really does work although she may still cry when she has to be held still - I got some of the cream on my face once after putting some on a very wriggling toddler and i thought I was having a stroke because it went so numb and I didn't realise that was what it was for about 5 minutes).

Sorry that this has happened to you and I hope it goes better next time.

[ummadam]

meant to say - I know she didn't cry last time but she might this time in anticipation

[harman]

Message withdrawn

[RGPargy]

I understand that obviously they are busy but it's really frustrating! I wouldn't mind if it was me!

On hindsight i think the reason why they said not to put on the cream was because her veins weren't very prominent anyway so it would be much harder if they put the cream on. Let's hope she doesn't cry in anticipation! On the contrary, she actually cried when i had to put her coat back on again because she didn't want to go! All she kept doing was smiling at the doctor and the nurse haha!

Harman - to be honest, i'd rather go to the hospital where they are used to getting blood from babies. My GP might not be so experienced!

[ummadam]

Your GP may be a bit out of practice - I did hundreds when I was doing paediatrics but would not be too keen to try now unless it was an emergency.

Good luck