a&e bad experience

[cucumberpeach]

Just having a little moan as feeling a bit sorry for myself. I know people go through worse things.

I woke up with agonising abdominal pain which worsened all day, vomiting and everything and not keeping anything down. DM called the GP for me and they sent for an ambulance which took several hours to come (not complaining, it's not their fault, obvs there will have been more serious cases to attend to).

Eventually they came and I've now been in the hospital for hours in agony. They didn't give me pain relief, had to beg for it several times. It helped but then wore off and they ignored my polite requests for more. They actually shouted at me when I tried to lie on the floor as it brought relief. They told off a kind lady who went to ask if I could be seen as I was in a lot of pain for misleading them as they thought she was asking for her own mother and asking on behalf of someone else is apparently 'against the rules'.

After asking at the desk four times over the course of an hour they gave me a codeine pill but I'm dreading it wearing off.

Just a bad experience and still haven't seen the dr. Upside is seeing how kind the patients are to eachother, we're all sticking up for eachother! One women was stroking my hair as I lay on the floor in pain.

I realise nurses and medics have a really hard job btw. Just quite miserable at this point.

That's a really good point.
My SIL has not long retired from the same hospital the OP was in She says the same as you. Why do you think that is?

Not bright was actually the kindest interpretation/explanation of this nurse's behaviour.

Oh I know don't worry! Thank you. If I hadn't been in so much pain I could have almost laughed at the absurdity - getting yelled at for getting onto the floor in pain. I mean, why not just kick us out the window while you're at it?! Or I could have made a useful draught excluder.

I didn't call nurses in general not bright - that wouldn't be a very bright thing to say now would it?! I'm talking about a couple of specific people.

I think the self-deprecating tone of my original post has got lost - I wasn't saying I thought anything really bad had happened to me, I was just a bit miserable, I'd been sitting on my own with no one to talk to for hours and fancied chatting on here. I'm glad that threads like this provide a platform for people's far more serious experiences though - some of these are heartbreaking

A piece of information I totally forgot to give (because I didn't know I was going to be forensically examined!) was that DM was texting my brother the whole time who is a doctor. She's not some confused old lady who made things up on the phone - the two of them are really quite sensible.

And before anyone comes back with 'you should have got your doctor brother to look after you', he was on a shift and lives in a different part of the country.

So walked, then.

'You do seem to be overly invested in telling OP what her experience was, when you weren't there and don't actually know what happened at all. You've posted multiple times'

The op quotes almost everything I post so I respond to that. Should I just ignore the unpleasant sneers when I've been very polite? 'Dimwits' being one lovely example.

We weren't there true but she has told us what happened, so therefore that is what we go on. We've all waited hours in hospitals be it A&E or wherever and that is unfortunately the way it because of pressure on the services often by people who could and should be managed by their GP.

To then say 'some' nurses aren't very bright and be critical of being told to get off the floor would seem an odd thing to direct anger at.

I wouldn't say you've been very polite, actually. It hasn't come across that way.

The op spoke about the specific nurses she dealt with as not being very bright. It wasn't a swipe at nurses in general.

How do you know if isn't true to say they weren't very bright? Some nurses aren't particularly bright. Some are. OP was speaking to the particular situation. Which you weren't present at.

Why the desperation to defend people you don't even know, when you're well aware you weren't present and have no evidence to comment on?

That is absolutely horrific, I am so sorry. That doctor should have been disciplined.

If you're in a huge amount of pain and lying down is the only thing that brings relief and there is no bed available and you've been on a chair for hours - what else are you meant to do apart from lie on the floor? Why would anyone not be annoyed about being shouted at for that and made to endure worse agony than they have to, because of being denied the most basic form of relief available (because they sure as hell don't ensure that patients in the wards, never mind the waiting room, are given regular and timely access to the several very good painkillers that exist)? What an unreasonable, inhumane position to take.

As I've said before, I wasn't angry. I had no anger! I got upset, and sort of vaguely dismayed.

With two strong paramedics holding me up, yes. You are very unkind.

I'm going to go now as I don't want to be bullied but thank you again to all the awesome people on here and I'm so sorry for what people have been through. ❤

Exactly!

God, people can be awful. There’s such a lack of even basic compassion and decency.

Things have deteriorated sadly. Not that many years ago, a GP would quite happily come out to see you, not a problem at all. Or if needs be, you would go to the local hospital, a cottage hospital, where the GP on call would be called to come and see you. The nurses knew you by name from town, and if, like my daughter, you were a frequent visitor would be welcomed like an old friend.
If things needed more serious care and the Cottage Hospitals would be able to cope with most things, an ambulance would take you to the local big hospital, and before you knew it, you would be lying in a bed with the nurses taking care of you and a consultant on the way.
That is not that many years ago. now there is no friendly GP or cottage hospital so people are forced to try to get an appointment at their local surgery which is next to impossible so the do the option open which is to rock up to a and e. it is not idea its overcrowded the nurses are fed up with being yelled at, the Drs are working flat out to the point of exhaustion it is ridiculous.

We had open access in London when having proton therapy. It was much better.

A totally random update to my situation: I have just found out that, for convoluted reasons, I can have an EU passport. My mind is blown - I had no idea. Maybe I'll actually be able to retire somewhere with decent healthcare and not have to go through this nonsense when I'm old and sick. A silver lining to the week anyway.

Be cross fine about your daughter ( she’s 31 , so nothing to do with “small boats” right), but don’t be a racist twat and conflate a load of issues. Doctors are generally very qualified, what they are is under resourced and over stretched. Willing to chip in more are you? Didn’t think so, bet you voted Tory or reform too so you get what you vote for.

Yup. The NHS is being held together by wonderful medics from abroad (and some from here of course).

The nhs has lots of excellent staff and sadly lots of rubbish staff like the op's gp who pass the buck to other departments to look after their patients.

I've lived and worked in many countries and believe me what we have here is generally very good, yes we may have to wait hours for non urgent ambulances and then wait a while in an accident and emergency department due to other more sick patients but the provision is usually very good.

There have been some genuinely upsetting cases on this thread and of course yesterday we hear of a 20 year old not taken to hospital by a paramedic despite displaying multiple signs of serious illness so imo GPs and paramedics need to be trained more to determine who to take to hospital dependent on their clinical signs like blood sugar, pulse etc amd who to say take a paracetamol and see how you go.

@DameM People wait hours for urgent ambulances too. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates 300-500 deaths per WEEK are occurring due to unacceptable waiting times for ambulances and A&E treatment.

A couple of years ago I had a haemorrhage. I was bleeding out. My DH called 999, and they told him that they just didn’t have an ambulance to send. It should have been a category 1. They told him that I’d have a better chance if he put me in the car and took me himself, which he did. Luckily he’s strong enough to physically carry me. I wouldn’t say our health provision has been ‘generally good’ for a number of years now.

'A couple of years ago I had a haemorrhage. I was bleeding out. My DH called 999, and they told him that they just didn’t have an ambulance'

What?! that is awful where were you haemorrhaging from, a serious wound? I mean yes you're quite right in your situation you'd of course expect an immediate response and even if an ambulance wasn't redirected from a less urgent case then a first responder would normally be dispatched to start an iv and control the haemorrhage. Hope you were ok and complained