Was this nurse rude?

[Littlestdove]

I want to preface this by saying I am in pain so that’s not helping but yesterday I went to A and E with pain under my right rib cage- I believe it could be my gallbladder as I have a polyp and both my parents have had theirs removed . It was an extreme stabbing pain that took my breath away. My blood pressure was 170/90 and I just felt awful. No temp tho.

I was given morphine and some buscopan and then told they couldn’t ultrasound my gallbladder until the morning so they’d send me home with strong painkillers and to come back to A and E if my ultrasound showed any stones and the polyp.

So que to this morning, I’ve been up all night in agony trying to make it through to my ultrasound. Ultrasound shows stone and polyp. I rebook into A and E and first thing the nurse triaging says is

”back again? You’ve been in no end lately”

so I said, well yes I was in yesterday and told to rebook in if I was still in pain and my ultrasound showed a stone and polyp.

”You do know you can see your GP for Abdominal issues?”

and I said yes, I realise that however it was a sudden intense pain

”Well I’m just letting you know for further information”

meh. I’m sat here in pain and now just feel like a time waster.

Id be reporting her. Hope you feel better soon

Very, very, very rude, totally out of order, and totally unprofessional. I've got a very close friend who's got a chronic illness (in her mid 50s now and she was diagnosed about 15-16 years ago.) Before you could actually send prescriptions via the internet to the pharmacy, she used to go and put a prescription in the 'prescription box' at the doctors - and then go back for it two or three days later to take to the pharmacy. And she was on quite a lot of meds for a chronic pain.

There was always this one receptionist in there who would say, (almost every time she saw my friend,) 'oh here she comes toddling along, shuffling along for her prescriptions. Haha. Come on Julie, get your prescription. The 15th one this month.' There would be at least 15 to 20 people listening. Some who KNEW Julie. Absolutely fucking disgusting. My friend was mortified and humiliated.

She refused to report the woman because she was worried about repercussions, but I did. I wrote a letter to the practice manager. About three or four weeks later this receptionist disappeared. Never returned. I don't know if she got the sack, but I fucking hope so.

Report this nurse @Littlestdove Whilst many nurses are kind and caring individuals. Some are NOT. And I know a couple in the latter category!

The ”back again? You’ve been in no end lately” bit - it really depends on her tone. Could have been meant in a jokey way, maybe she was just making conversation, we don't really know. The rest of it - she was just ascertaining whether you were aware of other appropriate HCPs that you could go to should anything like this happens again.

That's a completely different scenario, nothing like what is described here, not conparable in the slightest. That receptionist deserves to be reported.

See your GP? You must be joking. I've just had a heart attack and a pulmonary embolism, had to go to A&E because GP didn't give me a promised call several times.
I just loved sitting in A&E for 12 hours, I'd much rather have seen my GP.

I think the nurse mixed you up with someone else too surely?

I went to A&E 3 times in 2019/2020. There were 111 calls around this time too, cause prior to this I had never been to A&E and wasn't sure and I only went on their advice. I felt like I was there a lot but no one ever said “back again” to me.

Calls to 111*

I took woman who was visiting from another country to A&E at 2am as she was vomiting constantly and was in pain and she really sounded like she was wretching her guts up. The triage nurse said that I should have called the out of hours GP instead of coming in, and I said but what could he/she have done? They would have sent us to A&E! But she made us feel like we were making a fuss over nothing. The doctor was more sympathetic and treated her.
As it happened the wife of the head of A&E was a mum of a classmate of my dd and I saw her the next day and mentioned what had happened. Three weeks later I saw her again and she said she had told her husband and the nurse had been told off - there are no out of hour GPs after midnight for one thing! And really no one wants to go to A & E, especially not at 2am. Making a patient feel guilty while already in a bad way is hardly helpful.

Tell her a&e is for people who feel they need it and that it's not your fault she doesn't enjoy her job! Snotty cow!

Whenever anyone posts on these threads claiming that if you're well enough to post on MN, you don't need A&E I remember the post a few years ago when a woman was soaking through sanitary pads at a terrifying rate. Most people told her to get to A&E; a couple scoffed at the idea of an ambulance for 'a heavy period'. Of course, an update later from hospital was that the poor woman had been haemorrhaging and if she'd taken the advice to go to bed and call her GP in the morning she would have been dead already. Well able to post, also in the grip of a life threatening emergency. I do recall one scoffer coming back to apologise. It's just not true that being able to type is incompatible with severe and dangerous illness meriting A&E!

I was once driven to A&E by someone but I probably could've managed to drive myself so no ambulance needed. I didn't pass out. Yet I was told that coming into A&E that evening saved my life and how good it was I did it. I only left hospital two months later.
Not requiring an ambulance and not passing out doesn't mean someone doesn't need A&E.

Wow, that was out of order! I’d complain.

Yeah this annoys me too. The judgemental opinionated individuals who think they know fucking everything. Get them on every thread unfortunately, shitting out their dire opinions and views. They are best ignored.

I’ve always been a little bit hesitant about this hospital, my mum had surgery and wasn’t getting better afterwards and we were convinced she had sepsis. She could hardly breathe and open her mouth to talk.

Nurse triaged her and said “oh it won’t be sepsis she looks too well to have sepsis probably just another infection”

Well her inflammation markers were off the scale and she had not only sepsis but was in septic shock, she was hours from death.

So perhaps that’s always left a bad taste in my mouth regarding the nurses here- but I know a lot of nurses personally and they work off the scale and bloody hard and are lovely so it’s never a knock at such a hard working job.

Our local hospital trust has a contact form on the website where you can leave opinions so that is what the OP should do . I often leave a ‘review’ if I have cause to go to the hospital for anything . I recently left a very positive comment about my experience with the outpatient pharmacy as these people rarely get positive feedback , it’s usually just people moaning about the wait time .

Hope you feel better soon @Littlestdove

OP ignore these absoloute morons with clearly no medical background trying to tell you you shouldn't be in A+E. You have every right to be there as anyone else.

Galbladder pain is often described as the worst a person has ever had including childbirth and I know cause I suffered for about a year before paying privately for it to be removed (wouldnt have paid if it wasnt exhaustion agonising and ruining my life- do you think I like spending time on the floor off A+E writhing and crying in pain and biking?)

In addition many things can be life threatening and the patient can still walk and talk- actually laughable that someone thinks this should prevent you from being in A+E. My friend ended up with sepsis because an idiot gp told her she couldnt have a kidney infection because she could stand- she ended up severely ill for weeks in hospital with a kidney infection and had obvs signs of systemic infection at her GP appt. Appendicitis is another one that comes to mind.

Pain like you're describing could mean a gallstone is stuck, (which can be a medical emergency causing jaundice or love dysfunction) or pancreatitis or any number of things but that is why the NHS is there. Honestly this attitude of "dont go to A+E unless you are confident you are dying" is completely ridiculous. Sudden onset horrendous pain, causing elevated BP and HR and preventing sleep is absoloutely something that needs assessed in hospital, wth is a gp going to do over the phone.

So yes the nurse was a knob but I'm assuming shes probs got you confused with someone else if you've only been twice in 2 years or shes trying very badly to make convo and is sleep deprived so coming across like a bitch (benefit of the doubt here lol)

Does your GP sit around all Saturday morning on the off chance somebody needs a referral/prescription?

She was rude.

I thought this, sounds like she’s mixed you up with someone else she’s seen recently and got you mixed up.

Ive no doubt they do get reoccurring “visitors” but the way she spoke to you was uncalled for.

id gave said something back…

Yep. I’d report. Lots of family in healthcare and I would still report.

Can the NHS do much about recurring visitors to A&E? I’m assuming they can’t ban but might place social services referral

My cleaner was having ball bladder issues hers was worst the normal as she had the stone going up her digestive track when vomiting. She said the pain was worse then childbirth so you have my sympathy

If I’d left it to my GP and not gone to A&E I’d be dead now. Stomach pains my GP dismissed as being ‘rundown’ and suggested a bottle of Peptol turned out to be colon cancer. Go to A&E and don’t listen to people telling you otherwise.

You don’t seem very well informed. I went to A&E (in my friends car, not an ambulance) because of pains dismissed by my doctor. They did some tests and told me they were going to keep me in overnight. They got me in a ward and I didn’t leave the hospital for three weeks. Turned out I had cancer and had major surgery. So no, A&E didn’t whip out part of my colon but the ward they put me on did.