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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to hate a and e?

271 replies

Fuckingforriner · 22/04/2014 15:53

I'm waiting at the a and e in at the moment and I hate it.
I have a toddler who loves to scream all the time and I have everyone looking at me as if I can stop the toddler from screaming.

I've got an earache since Friday and when I tried to get to my GP today I was offered a telephone appointment. My phone rang three times and they hanged up as I was picking up the phone.

I'm in a lot of pain and when I get to the reception I found a rude woman who happen to be a nurse. I might be wrong but I noticed she was friendlier to other patients, maybe she didn't like my face, but I can't help thinking it's because I'm a fucking foreigner.

OP posts:

NurseyWursey · 22/04/2014 23:17

dusty a blocked oesophagus is an emergency. I don't think anyone would doubt that.

Nennypops · 22/04/2014 23:18

Bloody hell nenny someone dies from an extreme condition and you think somehow who herself thought her condition only warranted the gp until she found she couldn't get in is at all comparable? Clutching at straws, much?

It's a point that has validly been made by more than one person on this thread, I wonder why you aren't jumping on the others?

Hospitals are full of people who originally thought their condition only warranted the GP. That's what I thought when I took DS with a temperature, bad headache and general listlessness. An hour later he was in hospital being treated for meningitis. Perhaps I should have said to the doctor "Certainly not, I decided this morning he only needed to see a GP, we can't possibly take up valuable space in hospital, you must prescribe him some amoxycillin and paracetamol".

I really don't get why people think there is some sort of duty on ill people to self-diagnose and decide that no, with any luck they won't die today so they won't bother A&E with it.

Nennypops · 22/04/2014 23:21

Nennypops, are you being deliberately obtuse? Of course she had other options. Gp again, nhs direct etc.

I return the question. GPs said no; NHS direct, I am absolutely sure (from similar personal experience), would have said go to a doctor, walk-in wasn't viable, hospital said go to A&E. Why would she ignore that advice?

NurseyWursey · 22/04/2014 23:21

What a ridiculous statement. No one is asking anyone to self diagnose. We are asking people to use their brains to establish which healthcare facility is the correct one, go to it and get a diagnosis instead of wasting precious time, money and equipment that other people need

Nicknacky · 22/04/2014 23:21

Nennypops, in that case we might as well get rid of GP surgery's and just send everyone to A&E? I'm sure if you thought your sons symptoms required emergency treatment you would have taken him there?

Like I said earlier, you don't have to go through A&e to be admitted to hospital. It can be done through gp's, ooh's etc.

NurseyWursey · 22/04/2014 23:22

It's funny how the 'I was told to go to a&e part' was drip fed.

Nicknacky · 22/04/2014 23:22

Nennypops,s that's why I said "again". Speak to them again.

sharonthewaspandthewineywall · 22/04/2014 23:23

Nenny those are all the symptoms that people are told to look out for for meningitis. Nobody would deny that needs emergency treatment there have been god knows how many campaigns.
I'm struggling to think of one which says ear ache can be fatal get down to a&e

TillyTellTale · 22/04/2014 23:28

Bloody hell nenny someone dies from an extreme condition and you think somehow who herself thought her condition only warranted the gp until she found she couldn't get in is at all comparable?

Conditions escalate untreated. Yes. She did try the GP first. Yes, a GP was unavailable. I'm a bit stuck on the step where we assume that because she tried the GP first, it must be minor enough to not need treatment at all until the next day.

People see their doctors with things that need A&E treatment all the time. My mother broke her arm once and refused to believe me when I said it was broken. She went down to the doctor, and the doctor said, go to A&E. If the doctor hadn't been available, would that have meant it wasn't broken at all?

Because it definitely was!

NurseyWursey · 22/04/2014 23:30

Tilly no, that would be your mother's fault because despite her being in pain and you telling her it was broken, she refused to seek the appropriate treatment.

Suspected broken bones NEED an X Ray. Going to a GP isn't going to help.

An ear ache is the job of a GP to diagnose or refer if they think it fit to.

Nicknacky · 22/04/2014 23:32

How can you compare this to a broken arm? The only appropriate place for a broken arm is A&E, a Gp can't do anything for that.

But for the op there was other alternatives. The options weren't just "GP" or A&E.

Nennypops · 22/04/2014 23:33

I absolutely don't question the fact that A&E shouldn't get blocked up with people who are there for trivial illnesses and injuries. But the point is that people don't go to A&E for fun, generally, but because they are genuinely concerned, or sometimes because there is nowhere else they can go. Look at the number of times someone posts on here about a symptom and gets deluged with responses saying "A&E! now!" or "Ambulance! Now!"

Case in point, possibly. A couple of weeks ago I spent a fairly hellish couple of hours in A&E with my mother, who was there because she had cut her leg. Had it been left to me, I'd have taken her to the drop-in centre, but the people in charge at her sheltered accommodation had called her GP who had insisted she be taken to A&E because she's on Warfarin. Once she was there and booked in, it was made plain to me that it was more trouble than it was worth getting her booked out again, and indeed when I suggested it they looked at me as if they thought I was operating elder abuse and they didn't trust me to get treatment for her. So there we had someone with a minor injury which was not going to have serious consequences unless it had been left to bleed for several more hours, and both her GP and the hospital were insisting that A&E was where she should be. Had I posted something on MN at the time about how annoyed I was at the wait, no doubt I'd be getting the response OP is getting.

And I don't think someone who is in A&E in severe pain having genuinely tried to get treatment elsewhere really deserves to get jumped on quite so viciously by MN in ultra judgy mode.

Lauren83 · 22/04/2014 23:33

I always thought you were only to go to a&e for strokes/major blood loss/head injuries, heart attacks and broken bones, I guess like someone else posted once OP made contact they couldn't tell her not to incase they had a claim, I have had many times when I was desperate for some iv pain relief, I'm on Tramadol, Fentanyl and Morphine every day (plus several others) and sometimes in agony still but I couldn't bring myself to bother them, I also think if you are posting on here your pain is manageable

NurseyWursey · 22/04/2014 23:34

Well that brings us to the point I raised before, many people feel justified in their visit to A&E but it doesn't mean they're right.

Nennypops · 22/04/2014 23:34

But for the op there was other alternatives. The options weren't just "GP" or A&E.

But they were. As explained more than once upthread.

NurseyWursey · 22/04/2014 23:36

And I must be crap at managing 'severe pain' because I wouldn't even contemplate posting on here never mind actual be able to.

Nicknacky · 22/04/2014 23:37

Not a chance would you have had abuse for that. An older patient with a cut on warafin? I'm no medical expert but that deserves A&E.

I think what some posters don't realise that you, I or most people on this website DONT enjoy being in A&E. But many people do for different reasons. And it can be hard to think of that when you are of the mindset that most of us are. And that's why some of us are saying to use your heads and think of the options.

Nicknacky · 22/04/2014 23:39

Well, Nennypops there was a walk in centre albeit a good distance away. She could have utilised that. Bhs has made no mention of speaking to nhs direct or pushing her Gp for assistance. Not a chance would I rock up at A&E at 3pm, I would turn up at my gp's first.

Nennypops · 22/04/2014 23:41

I'm sure if you thought your sons symptoms required emergency treatment you would have taken him there?

I think you're missing the point. I referred to this incident in answer to the suggestion that if someone thinks their condition justifies treatment by a GP, they can't possibly justify going to A&E if it turns out that they can't see the GP for 24 hours and the condition is getting worse.

Suppose I hadn't been able to see the GP and had decided to go to A&E. It's pretty clear from these responses that an awful lot of MNers would say that was an outrageous waste of NHS time, because my son only had a headache and temperature, the chances were he just had flu, surely if it was serious I wouldn't have been prepared just to take him to the GP. And indeed they might have been proved right, I might have been told just to take DS home and give him Calpol, and he might have been fine the next day. But, as matters turned out, they would have been proved 100% wrong.

Sure, A&E might not have diagnosed him. But he would have stood a better chance of being diagnosed in A&E than he would if I didn't take him at all.

Nennypops · 22/04/2014 23:46

Well, Nennypops there was a walk in centre albeit a good distance away. She could have utilised that.

A 90 minute journey? Seriously? Would you do that if you were in severe pain, had a fractious toddler in tow, and had been advised to go to A&E?

The trouble is, you are making decisions as to what OP should do from your perspective of not (I hope) having spent the weekend in escalating pain, not being sleepless as a result, not having to look after fractious toddler, not having been told by the GP that you had no chance for at least 24 hours, etc etc. Are you sure that in that situation you would always make the 100% perfect decisions you are demanding from the OP?

andsmile · 22/04/2014 23:47

well....maybe all for nothing if it is her teeth, should have went to dentist.

Nennypops · 22/04/2014 23:50

Not a chance would you have had abuse for that. An older patient with a cut on warafin? I'm no medical expert but that deserves A&E.

It doesn't, actually. On another occasion when my mother had a similar injury, I took her to the local walk-in clinic. She was seen by an expert nurse who was absolutely lovely, sorted out the cut, and sorted out district nurses to come and check and re-dress it. In fact, she did exactly what A&E did on the most recent occasion, the difference was we didn't have to wait as long, and after the A&E visit I had to sort out the district nurse myself.

TillyTellTale · 22/04/2014 23:52

NurseyWursey the point is that just because someone goes to the GP first doesn't mean they're right, and it doesn't mean that the next best option (GP being unavailable) is to leave it another 24 hours.

My mother thought she'd strained a muscle or something. As she was an adult, and I was her 19 year old daughter, not her keeper, I rolled my eyes and helped her to the doctor after packing her some reading material behind her back and helped her round the supermarket and to the doctors.

If she hadn't been able to get a GP appointment, I'd have pestered her into going to A&E straight away. Would the arm have been less broken because she was turning up at A&E for something she initially wanted a GP for?

Or is a condition's severity not that strongly linked to the thoughts of the sufferer?

Nicknacky · 22/04/2014 23:55

You are right I don't have a fractious toddler. I've got a 6 year old and a 20 week old baby and like I keep harping on, I was fairly ill myself last month. So yeah, I have a good understanding of how the op is feeling. But distance and childcare issues is not the nhs responsibility. We can't use the services that are easiest for us for that reason.

Myself and those around me considered the options and I was treated. I wasn't sitting in A&e.

Nicknacky · 22/04/2014 23:56

Nenny, I get the feeling if I said the sky was blue you would disagree with me. I will leave you to it. Night.

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