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

189 replies

tennor · 14/05/2014 23:08

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?

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 15/05/2014 19:53

OP, how are you doing this evening ?

Loverofcheese · 15/05/2014 20:10

Don't approach her. Make a formal complaint to a formal body and enclose a copy to her surgery.

UncleT · 15/05/2014 20:15

Chelsy please enlighten us as to what evidence exists here to suggest that the criticism of Macdoodle is anything to do with gender. Would love to understand what on earth prompted that comment.

UncleT · 15/05/2014 20:18

Macdoodle if you have been threatened, or indeed your family have in public media, that is obviously unacceptable and you have legal and criminal options open to deal with that - which you should certainly exercise.

2rebecca · 15/05/2014 22:05

If you go through the NHS complaints procedure you have to go through the informal practice based complaints procedure first. A formal body like the GMC isn't interested in being the first port of call unless something serious has happened. Suggesting you may be trying to move up the housing ladder and refusing to prescribe valium wouldn't fit their idea of serious, especially if they hear she had to be removed from the building by the police.
I think a complaint is a waste of time, at best the OP will get an "I'm sorry you were upset by my comments" type apology.

Canthisonebeused · 15/05/2014 22:08

PALS is a good place to start

2rebecca · 15/05/2014 22:15

If she is in England, although I didn't see when she named the practice, I presume you did if you know she's in England.

Canthisonebeused · 15/05/2014 22:18

Yes of course if in England. No I didn't see that post.

2rebecca · 15/05/2014 22:23

Although I'm probably a no voter in September the tendency of people in England to presume everyone on a UK forum also lives in England is one of the reasons so many Scots are tempted to vote yes.

Canthisonebeused · 15/05/2014 22:27

Funnily enough I'm a scot living England so I apologies however I wasn't really aware PALS was not UK wide

2rebecca · 15/05/2014 22:40

Very little in the NHS is now UK wide, although I think with free prescriptions and a ban on primary care being privatised up here we have the best of it at the moment.
The more people in England complain about their GPs the more the Tories will use it as an excuse to privatise it all because people "obviously aren't happy" with the service.
I think complaints are fine if a doctor has misdiagnosed cancer or failed to examine someone properly. When it comes to just not liking a particular comment or the way someone spoke to you it's a bit like complaining that someone looked at you in a funny way.
I agree with the poster who said that neither patient or GP had their finest hour here.

UncleT · 15/05/2014 22:50

Rebecca no - you can't seriously equate 'you're putting this on to get up the housing ladder' with looking at someone funny. Of course, that's with the major caveat that it depends on whether we're being told the truth here to start with, but still.

2rebecca · 16/05/2014 08:09

If a GP said that to me I would tell them they were wrong at the time, and that I was just very upset and frightened and needing help. I wouldn't go home and write a letter about it.
I also suspect that if the GP had done as the OP wanted and prescribed valium the OP wouldn't be talking about complaining.
Someone making an incorrect assumption about you is a reason to put them right, not complain in a letter.

RowanMumsnet · 29/05/2014 11:22

Hello

We deleted this thread a few days ago because we could see that the OP was posting from the same IP address as one of the other posters, and we thought there was some sock-puppeting/posting to mislead going on.

The OP has since been in touch and explained that the other poster is in fact their partner, which explains the identical IP address.

We've explained to the OP that it's best in these circumstances for the two posters concerned to make their relationship clear to other posters, and we trust that this will happen should they both continue to post.

So we've undeleted this now as the OP was finding it very helpful. Please can everyone bear in mind that it's not on to give the RL identities of any third parties concerned, or to drop hints about who they might be.

Thanks all
MNHQ

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