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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

WIBU to leave (consultant appointment)

136 replies

onemiddlefinger · 06/01/2015 12:22

I've been waiting now for 40min, somebody has taken my blood pressure in the waiting room, no sign of the consultant.
It's an antenatal appointment but I'm not actually sure why i need it.
It's in the middle of a work day, i need to get back.

OP posts:
treaclesoda · 06/01/2015 13:33

asking for the first appointment of the day is great in theory but in reality almost everyone who is going on to work afterwards wants the first appointment of the day.

LineRunner · 06/01/2015 13:39

I think the key thing here is for you to understand is exactly why you were given this appointment.

I don't think the communication is as it should be.

And am a tad surprised at posters swearing at/towards you for raising an issue of waiting times. But hey ho.

LineRunner · 06/01/2015 13:41

Piper, ML is planned for. An overrunning hospital appointment often isn't. I lost an entire working day in December for one appointment with a nurse.

JohnCusacksWife · 06/01/2015 13:43

Why are you in such a hurry to get back to work?

windchime · 06/01/2015 14:09

I went to Harley Street for my scans and consultant appointments. I had to wait 5 minutes to see him once. It was very vexing.

PicaK · 06/01/2015 14:12

A) Take some work with you next time.
B) Pay for private medical treatment if the NHS is too much to bear
C) Think for a moment about all those who would give anything to be in your position. You are so, so lucky. I appreciate the wait is frustrating but there are people on here who would sit there for 9 months if it meant they had a baby.

Icimoi · 06/01/2015 14:12

JohnCusacksWife, how about reading the thread? Or at least the OP's posts?

Icimoi · 06/01/2015 14:14

I'm slightly amazed at how tolerant everyone round here is. I was lucky enough to have ante-natal care at an NHS hospital which somehow ran its systems so that I never, over three pregnancies, ever had to wait more than around 20 minutes. If one hospital can do it, surely others can?

MiaowTheCat · 06/01/2015 14:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JackShit · 06/01/2015 14:18

55 mins is naff all, waits for consultant appointments regularly go beyond 2-3 hours!

OP, it means someone ahead of you needs help.

Chill out and learn to be grateful.

JohnCusacksWife · 06/01/2015 14:27

Icimoi, I have ....she had a meeting. So what? No-one's indispensable and an ante-natal appointment is way more important.

treaclesoda · 06/01/2015 14:28

my local hospital has the very annoying habit of issuing multiple appointments for the same time. Presumably it is to prevent lost appointments through the inevitable no shows. But it's a pain when you turn up at 2pm and don't get seen until 5 because everyone else turned up too.

KnackeredMerrily · 06/01/2015 14:34

Consider yourself very lucky. Seriously lucky.

You got to see a consultant, your appointment was free, you were seen in an hour, you had no complications.

To moan about it, yes yabu.

Mrshumptydumpty · 06/01/2015 14:39

Well let's hope that soon the USA system us introduced eh where it costs 10k dollars for normal birth or 500dollars a months for a health woman to insure herself against pregnancy!!! You will be able to enjoy all the non benefits of pared to the bone maternity 'care' and it's attendant lack of waiting times ( silly mare!)

TinyTear · 06/01/2015 14:40

I am seeing consultants every month in this pregnancy, but I have to admit even I was frustrated at the midwife's insistance I had to see a different one in the haematology department as I had taken clexane... by the time I saw this one, I had stopped the clexane weeks before and she really didn't need me there... if i wasn't seeing anyone, fine... but that was indeed a box ticking thing...

and do note I love the NHS and have no issue with my thorough consultant led care...

(although the same midwife double booked me with the birth options clinic, so the second appointment was wasted and could have gone to someone else...)

jigglywiggly · 06/01/2015 14:40

I would love to wait only 40 minutes, I'm currently not in the UK so my last antenatal appointment (yesterday) I waited 3 hours. There is no appointment system, you turn up take a ticket and wait your turn. How I miss the NHS.

MrsCosmopilite · 06/01/2015 14:44

It's frustrating having to wait, but I assume that the consultant was busy.

When I was pregnant with DD I was automatically referred to see a consultant as I was over 40. I'm not overweight (well, not very much so), I don't have high blood pressure, diabetes, don't smoke or drink.

The consultant said I was the easiest patient she'd seen as there were no causes for concern.

Glad I waited though, just to be sure. There is some history of miscarriage in my family, and it took me a long time (no IVF) to conceive. I didn't need to go back after that first consultation.

TinyTear · 06/01/2015 14:50

my antenatal waiting room now has free wifi...

when i was pregnant 3 years ago it was dead time waiting there, now I bring my laptop and do some work

Original poster
onemiddlefinger · 06/01/2015 14:53

I'm sure many people have it worse, but isn't the point of MN that you can post about anything, whether it's serious or a minor annoyance?

I was annoyed because:
a)my midwife did not really explain why I needed the appointment (I don't have any medical complications), I just got a text saying that this appointment had been booked
b) the questions that the consultant asked were also asked and answered at the midwife appointment
c) whereas 55min wait might be a short wait in certain places and no reason to complain, I had a meeting to get back to and was also hoping to have enough time to have lunch as I wasn't expecting this delay

OP posts:
BellsaRinging · 06/01/2015 14:54

I think some people are being unduly hard on you. Of course there are going to be delays at hospital sometimes, but I was also very frustrated by the constant delays with ante-natal appointments. At the midwife appointments there were no early or late appointments; always in the middle of the day, so it was hard to have a full-ish day at work. And the appointments were always running late as well. Hospital appointments were always running late too. Of course we are lucky to have the NHS and things could be far worse/more inconvenient. However, i did find that there was a general lack of understanding of the demands of a working environment. I was told-well your employer is legally required to give you the time off-that's true of course, but I do want to minimise the inconvenience to them and the service users, and the effect on many working women of the appointments over-running is simply that they stay late to get the work done.

LineRunner · 06/01/2015 14:55

Why on earth should delays be tolerated without question because the patients are female and pregnant?

SparklyTwinkleGlitter · 06/01/2015 15:11

YANBU. Yes, it's bloody annoying!

I was over 40 and fit and healthy with my first pregnancy but they still insisted I needed to be Consultant led.

Totally pointless box ticking exercise. If they're so stretched, why don't they prioritise and see people who have a clear medical need rather than everyone who happens to fit a statistical based criteria?

You can have a perfectly healthy pregnancy in your forties FFS!

Unfortunately, people are so blinded by the fact it's 'free' that they don't realise how much more efficient health services in other countries actually are.

NoLongerJustAShopGirl · 06/01/2015 15:12

LineRunner - on MN you are not allowed to complain about running times in the NHS - because it is "free" and we are "lucky to have it" and the doctors are important and they will be dealing with loads of people who are ill and much more important than you, your life, your job or your ability to pick up your children etc

For despite them having told you that you MUST attend at such and such a time, there is no onus on them to do so, or to tell you they are running late, or why, or to ask you to come back later if it is more convenient - so despite them being described as a "service", and we as "customers" - they mean they will tell us what to do, when.

Brummiegirl15 · 06/01/2015 15:13

I'm going to say yabu and you may well flame me and I'm almost certainly saying this because I am bitter and grieving.

I found out a few days ago that I'd suffered my 3rd miscarriage. I have no dc and we saw a heartbeat only 2 weeks ago.

I had to wait 3 days for surgery to remove my baby because there were simply no beds because of the crisis in A&E. I only returned home Sunday and now I am grieving for my 3rd lost baby.

3 days for surgery is waiting. Not 55 minutes. And I'm sorry you didn't get lunch. I was nil by mouth for 2 days desperately waiting for a bed that kept getting cancelled.

I appreciate my comment is probably unfair but I'm bitter, grieving and envious.

All I ask is that next time you have a wait. Just stop and think. Work will cope and they will understand.

I hope you have a boring, healthy, uneventful pregnancy.

TheLovelyBoots · 06/01/2015 15:19

This appointment was not free. The OP has paid for it through her taxes and she's irritated that her time is seemingly not valued. 40 minutes is quite a long time to wait for an appointment.

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