to not understand why arriving at A+E in an ambulance gives you priority regardless to your injury?

[elfsmamma]

We had the pleasure of spending this afternoon in A+E, dp had dislocated his shoulder.

Dp was in lots of pain, he couldn't walk, his arm was hanging down and he was crying, shaking and almost loosing consciousness.

We had to wait for ages, first for an x-ray and then for a Dr to give pain relief and eventually attempt to put the shoulder back in.

People kept saying to me "oh you should have called an ambulance, you would have been seen right away" "poor guy go and tell them he needs to be seen now"

When we eventually went in the lady in the next cubicle had bruised her foot, she had come in by ambulance so been taken directly in. She was happy as could be, chatting to us asking dp ( who couldn't speak easily) what was wrong with him.

Aibu to think that all patients should be judged on pain and severity of injury rather than method of arrival to casualty.

I've noticed that often minor easily sorted conditions tend to be in and out very quickly in my local A&E. Makes sense because then you don't have people with minor conditions clogging up space.

They may have seen the lady quickly to discharge her as they could see she didn't need as much treatment, whereas your DH was clearly going to need x-rays, pain relief and reduction, which would take more time.

On advice of my GP I took my DS up to A&E. She had called ahead and the neuro team were waiting for us. To others I took my vomiting, but walking teenage son, seemingly ok straight through to be examined ahead if any queue. He was diagnosed with a massive brain tumour two hours later.

I am very grateful that my GP and the A&E staff too my instincts and his symptoms seriously and we were rushed through.

I arrived at A & E in a Sea-King helicopter once and i still had to wait 2 hours to be seen by a doctor, but since I only had a sprained ankle it wasn't a big deal. I didn't even mind being tipped out of the wheelchair used to move me from the helicopter to the hospital building.

And before I get flamed as a time-wasting drain on the emergency services, I called the helicopter to rescue two paraglider pilots who'd had a mid-air collision, I sprained my ankle running down the mountain to help them and ended up as a very embarrassed extra casualty

I've been taken to hospital by ambulance and then triaged. I had a head injury and they were bothered about my blood loss, so I was seen immediately.

They were brilliant, absolutely and utterly brilliant.

Our local a and e is a peads one. DS has chronic asthma so spends a lot of time there, generally he goes straight in after he is triaged because he needs immediate treatment but he doesn't have an audible wheeze so looks well to anyone we pass. One time when he was settled I left him with my mum to go out and make a phone call and heard a mum on the phone complaining they were still waiting even though her so had come in an ambulance after falling down the bottom 2 steps and hurting his foot, and the some other child came in by car and wAs taken straight though"

I would happily be in a position of having to sit and wait rather than knowing the a and e staff so well I think we will be invited to their next night out!

Our local hospital has a separate children's A&E which is bloody brilliant, to be honest.

I recently skipped the queues for A&E despite not arriving by car - to be fair I had chest pain and was, well, bright yellow. This aggrieved the obnoxious teenager with possible tonsillitis but not the young lady who had taken ketamine - she was content to skip up and down pretending to be a fairy...!

Our local A&E has a separate children's bit too, it has a buzz system for the door too so only people with children can get access. I think it's a great idea as the children are triaged and treated by paediatric staff, there's proper facilities for them (e.g., toys, relevant patient information displays and leaflets, lowered toilets, baby change facilities,, etc) and they're away from certain people in main A&E such as the 2am on a Saturday pissed people or the ketamine lady mentioned above.

Our local A & E is brilliant too and I agree that you shouldn't judge on how ill people seem to be or tell you they are. Dh has compromised immunity due to chemotherapy and we've sometimes had to go through A & E if we couldn't get hold of the ward in the middle of the night and he had a nasty infection. It might have looked like queue jumping to others I guess.

I wish we had a separate children's A & E though. Ds has bad asthma and on a number of occasions we've sat next to drunken or drugged up people swearing all over the place and being aggressive (not quite bad enough to be thrown out but scary enough for kids).

Oh and twice I was told by the on-call oncologist to bring Dh in by car as it would be a quicker journey than ambulance (10 miles one way as opposed to a 20 mile round trip for the ambulance) but he was still classed as a higher priority than many who came in by ambulance.

we also have a seperate childrens A&E at our hospital. The door is only a few metres away from the adult door and I think its the same staff on both but the waiting area and consultation areas are seperate and the childrens waiting room is full of toys. I suppose it also helps with people in the main waiting room not getted pissed off with kids being seen first as they just don't see.

There is also a notice on the wall that waits for medically unwell patients and minor injuries may be different. I think that is because medically unwell i would guess have to be seen by a doctor but if just a few stitches are needed then that can be done by a nurse without having to wait for a doc.

I once walked to an urgent care unit and I was seen pretty much straight away. I had smashed my thumb. It did not require anyone with a medical degree or an x-ray to see that I had broken my thumb. It was a matter of a medically trained person deciding how best to fix it.

it is impossible to judge the servity of other cases

a) you do not have access to confidental informaiton
b) There may well be an injury that is not obvious to you.

Prehaps the lady with the bruised foot had more than a bruised foot and was happily chatting to you because she had been given a shot of morphine. Prehaps she had a thrombosis and didn't realise it due to being as high as kite on painkillers.

If someone doesn't need A and E then the ambulance won't take them to hospital.

Wombat unless it's life threatening of course children should be prioritised. Have you considered their emotional well being as well as how they are physically?

I think it depends on the country.

A friend of mine in Japan drove her son to hospital when he broke his arm. They had to sit and wait his turn with all the kids with colds and tummy upsets.

In Japan if it looks even a little bit serious you should call an ambulance and they will assess you and find a hospital with a department which will suit your needs. But that's the system there. They prefer you to call an ambulance. Totally different from the UK.

"Wombat unless it's life threatening of course children should be prioritised. Have you considered their emotional well being as well as how they are physically?"

You seriously think that children should ALWAYS take priority unless its life threatening?

Some people take their kids down to A and E for stupid things. Why should some poor old lady have to suffer in agony with a broken hip becuase little jonny with the over anxious mother has scraped his knee?

Most A and Es triage children quickly because children can go down hill quickly. Children who TRUELY ill need medical attention are given attention quickly. Our local hospital has a seperate waiting room with toys so that annoying kids don't upset other patients. There is no reasons why a child with a minor injury should not wait four hours if there is an adult in substantial pain. The children's room has plenty of toys and books. Usually the parents are more unhappy about the wait than the child.

Try not to make assumptions. With my background I get taken in earlier than most. You don't really want my background.

OTOH I have complained when things weren't taken seriously (I'd had a high fever but it had dissipated and I was actually very cold, so the triage nurse thought nothing wrong when I was actually going into shock?).

So yeah, don't make assumptions about the order but if you truly think you're ill, don't be fobbed off either is my view on A&E.

There is no private A and E!!!!

Tell, petition , beg , the govt to stop making cuts and increase the funding to doctors and treat us and the health service with some respect.

On top of all the cuts, because of the way we have been treated and maligned, the UK is facing a brain drain and if you think waiting in AE with minor injury is bad, then imagine having a serious or life threatening problem and not enough doctors to treat you. Either because they have left to go to Australia, or because Cameron has reduced the no of Drs on shift for financial reasons.

That is the reality of what David Cameron is doing, and no one has noticed because the BBC is just Cameron's propaganda tool.
Remember the missing weapons of destruction ....? well for this PM it will be the undermining and destruction of the NHS.

Private medicine is fine if you are ambulant, young and visiting clinic, but they can't cope with sick patients . Those inconvenient customers are immediately transferred to the NHS facility.

Take notice people, before its too late

If she was brought in by ambulance they would have done O2 level and other obs then. Your m um either deteriorated while waiting and was in the trolley area not the emergency / resusc area so it wasn't immediately noted or she came in via the GP route so no paramedics.

There is usually a target associated with ambulance turnaround - releasing ambulances back into the roads ASAP. This means the emergency dept might need to take over the care of the patient quickly. This is a good thing I think, as it gets available crews back on the road to answer blue light calls faster rather than being stuck in the queue.

Anyone who complains about waiting unless medical negligence is occurring is a bit of a wanker really,

Be careful what you wish for because you really do not want to be that person who has not had to wait.

fuckwittery

My above post was in no way at all connected to yours, bad timing that makes it look incredibly insensitive but not intended to be.

My mum got blue lighted in and then spent an hour and a half on a trolley in the corridor, before another 30 mins in a triage cubicle, four hours in a&e waiting to be seen, then shipped to a general ward, then seven hours after that moved to coronary care.

She had been on a trolley in the corridor in agonising pain because she was having her THIRD heart attack in five months.

That was not good at all.