Am I being unreasonable to want my doctor to apologise to me?

[tennor]

To cut a long story short my life is falling apart at the moment, I need to sort out work (retrain) and somewhere to live among other things. I’ve been suffering depression and went to the doctor A who referred me to my borough’s psychological services. I spoke to them on the phone and they have made an appointment for me, however they said they were worried about my mental state and asked me to make another appointment at the doctors (I guess for anti depressants). The morning of my appointment I found out that a friend of mine had died. Another Doctor, Doctor B, looked at my letter from Psychological therapies and said “well I don’t know what they expect me to do” she asked me about my mental state too, I replied that I feel stressed and angry. She told me “I know what you’re doing you’re putting this on to bump your way up the housing ladder” – however I am not even on the “housing ladder”. Taken aback by this comment I said I’m stressed out, my friend has died and asked if she could prescribe me some Valium. No she replied, I asked if she would prescribe just 1 pill, she said “I don’t give people like you valium”. I said I think that she is not a nice person and she showed me the door.

I walked out on to the street totally stressed out, muscles cramping. I tried to go home yet found myself walking up and down the road. After about 30 minutes I went back to see Dr B, I knocked on her door, she opened it and said she was busy, I said ok i will wait. She then walked past me and around the corner and that was the last time a saw her. Two minutes later the receptionist came around and asked me to leave, I told her I just want to see Dr B to get some Valium, she told me the doctor doesn’t want to see you and this surgery doesn’t prescribe Valium. She said If I had a problem, write a complaint.

I went back outside pacing up and down and decided I would write a complaint letter, I went home and wrote the letter which included the facebook address of my dead friend and my post to him which I had left that morning before going to the doctors. I went back to the doctors with my letter, I wanted her to go on line and look at it so she could see that I was not making this up.

I was asked to wait in reception and she would see me, 20 minutes later the police walked in and told me that she has made a complaint about me being aggressive and that she is not going to see me. The police had the new video and audio cameras recording everything that went on, I have to say they were the nicest police I have ever met, If they didn’t have the video cameras I would have certainly have been arrested. I told them im not leaving so arrest me but they defused the situation and I left peacefully with an appointment to see a different doctor.
However I am still angry at the way Dr B treated me, and her outright lie to the police about me being aggressive. I asked the receptionist if she had ever seen me be aggressive and she replied no.
i want to add that I have never had valium prescribed to me before or any other drug for that matter from my doctors and that I hardly ever visit the doctor. i want to book an appointment with her so she can read my compliant letter and visit my dead friends facebook page and apologise to me. Am I being unreasonable to the cow?

i do have someone with me, and i think im gona get some sleep and come back to this tomorrow. i thought talking about this would help me, but i think im stressing myself out more thinking about it. however i would like to thank all of you for your comments, im going to read all of them again tomo, i think they have been really helpful. thanks so much.

There is an appropriate case to prescribe diazepams under certain circumstances and with strict monitoring. I can understand why asked for them tennor. The dr sounds utterly ineffectual so what ever was the best treatment option at the time wether that be any prescription or referring on to appropriate services sadly didn't happen. But you certainly need to attend the next appointment. Is there anyone who knows you well who can attend with you?

Take good care of your self tennor

If the doctor behaved as you said she did, then it makes me despair (again) of the shit state of mental health services in the UK. You went in troubled and upset, she read a letter about you being a danger to yourself and others, and she proceeded to imply you are a benefits cheat and deny you a drug because she doesn't think "people like you" (?) need it. That's not acceptable, I agree. I'm not saying she should prescribe it, but she should have explained calmly and in detail why she would not/could not.

I know it's hard, but I think you should make a formal complaint about her behaviour and then let it go. You should concentrate on finding a health care professional that you can trust and rely on. Perhaps you should switch surgeries if seeing her around will bother you.

Treat yourself very nicely and try not to stress, okay?

My doctor was an arse about my depression too. Told me I wanted a week or two off work and that I was shamming. My employers sent me to their medical service and I ended up being off work for six months on all sorts of prescription medication that I eventually swapped for St. Johns wort tablets from Boot's herbal medicine counter. Docs were sceptical but it works for me.

The GP was right in not giving into your demands and phoning the police after your bizarre and erratic behaviour. I hope you get the help you need, but the doctor acted in the correct way.

That dr did not act the right way what so ever.

I think the best thing you could do is to contact your mental health team in the morning and say you need help very urgently. Hopefully they can get you a fast reversal to see someone and for anti-depressants. I don't think the doctor communicated with you at all well, even if she was justified in not prescribing Valium, but that's something you can deal with later. Get yourself seen ly a proper mental health professional asap. Good luck.

The DR did not act in the right way.

If the Dr was reading a letter/email from the psychological team stating the were worried about the patients safety regarding themselves or other, that last thing the GP should be doing is ignoring tout he words of her peers and telling the person they are pulling a 'fast' one to get a house

They should be referring to a crisis team if the OP has been deemed to be at significant risk!

tennor I hope you get some sleep and maybe come back tomorrow and post on the Mental Health section here.

AIBU is going to garnner lots of ill thought replies as well as helpful ones, because people can be arseholes

Mental Health problems can make people behave in a way not acceptable or understandable to the rest of 'normal society'. The Doctor should have been more understanding.

However I would say write a formal complaint in the proper way, it will help you put the incident to bed, then leave it, concentrate on yourself.

I have had something a bit similar where a Psychiatrist suggested I take my daughter to the local hospital and ask them to admit her to keep her safe. We sent five hours at the hospital having given her history to four different members of staff while they asked us what we were doing there and told us we were wasting their time. It was really demoralising.

Mental Health services are serious lacking. We too were advised by CAMHS to see our doctor for anti depressants only to be told by the doctor that she couldn't prescribe anti depressants to someone under the age of 18.

The whole things a bit of a mess. I hope some one can tell me something positive about mental health services.

OP - I'm sorry about your friend and I hope you find help to get yourself sorted and back on track.

Good luck :-)

Mom that's often the way I'm afraid. I know someone who was taken to A+E in extreme physical and mental distress, not even seen by a Psych and sent home brusquely. The next day they saw said patient again and had to occupy themselves with resuscitating them and admitting them to intensive care, where they lay for a long time. There is often a hideous lack of experience in MH issues (or proper recognition of them) amongst GPs and those in A+E who tend to try to patch people up and send them home. Proper MH services can, on the other hand, be superb.

Uncle T, I wish we could find some 'superb' MH services.

No luck so far.

I think there's a degree of luck involved, and my experience hasn't always been superb. Get the right team and it can be brilliant, but I went through all sorts of useless shit before that happened.

I saw the crappest GP in the world last month when I was so stressed I could have killed myself. When you are in that place, the kind of behaviour the OP did would be perfectly normal. Can't believe some of the comments on here.

If psychological services felt that you needed referring back to your GP then she did act unprofessionally. It doesn't sound like your greatest hour but stress and anxiety can do terrible things to you. Unfortunately some GP's are not good at dealing with mental health issues. She could have prescribed diazepam for your short term anxiety and anti depressants for your long term depression. Look after you now. When you feel a bit less stressed you can decide what to do about putting in a complaint.

Yabu. You sound very stressed and do seem to have taken it out on the doctor. Your behaviour sounds very aggressive and the fact she has to call the police makes me question your account. Doctors don't call the police unless they really have to. The housing comment is strange but suspect you taken it out of context and more likely to believe the doctor due to your rest of comments. Very childish calling the doctor a cow and you immediately lose any support. If you want to complain go through proper channels and ask for this post to be removed. Sorry about your friend. X

Forgot to add look after yourself. I hope today things look better. Do little things like if you can see a friend, go for a walk...talk to friends x

OP you sounds so upset.

Hmmm what happened to 'first do no harm'?!

You're GP sounds either inexperienced/under qualified/failed at being a decent GP from your post and one of those GPs who is trained to write prescriptions based on 5 minutes with a patient explaining what's wrong.

in a booming tannoy voice: this appointment is sponsored by

When is comes time to actually applying some sort of medical intervention based on a holistic approach it's beyond them. I've had some horrific experiences with utterly ineffectual GPs but it's not even getting into as I'll get the rage all over again.

(I have a more than fantastic GP practice and I'm a little in love with all the wonderful receptionists and I'm so grateful for them - NHS at it's best in every way - so no I don't have any issue with GPs just shit ones, I had a huge issue with a shit car mechanic once too)

Assuming you were faking it as it were, screams incompetence and unprofessionalism. There were a million better ways this could have been handled.

Your case at least called for a bit more sympathy and possibly a crisis team, not the police. Especially if that letter said what you say it did.

I am a GP and incredibly sympathetic to patients in distress with anxiety. But you behaviour sounds odd and scary, and I'm not surprised she called the Police if you refused to leave. I have been the victim of a FB smear campaign because I rfused to give a patient what they wanted (quite correctly). It was very unpleasant and distressing for me, especially as I live where I work and of course couldnt tell my side at all because of patient confidentiality. I am afraid YABU and have destroyed any relationship with this surgery. Probably best to register elsewhere and start fresh without the drama.

macdoodle, sorry to hijack, but might you please be able to advise me on a matter? link if so

Sorry!

I'm inclined to think that your behaviour does sound aggressive and I think the GP practice had good reason to call the police. There are strict clinical protocols in place around prescribing valium too.

If you want to make a complaint you need to do it through official channels.

I hope you get appropriate help as you sound very unwell.

Does that mean it's ok to threaten and scare medical workers, why are we expected to be abused because someone is ill. You would be shocked by how common this is, unless someone lacks capacity then I'm sorry it's not on.