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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Horrible experience at local walk in. AIBU?

44 replies

ValiantVelvet · 09/12/2015 11:20

I've had a heavy cold for the past week. It's just started to shift (which is nice!) Last night at work I started getting signs of a water infection (I'm prone to them) so called into the walk in on my way home.

Anyway, went through to see the nurse prescriber and didn't get chance to say anything before she started to berate me about not being able to do anything for a cold, and that I shouldn't have come.

I explained that I wasn't there about the cold, but about a water infection. (You'd think the fact I walked in clutching a pot of pee would have told her it wasn't about the cold!) Anyway, she huffed a bit more about not treating colds before she actually checked for a water infection.

I left feeling rather upset. AIBU?

OP posts:

arethereanyleftatall · 09/12/2015 11:23

She was obviously wrong in your case, but I do feel sorry for medical staff at this time of year, fir the hundreds upon thousands of people wasting their time with colds.

littlemermaid80 · 09/12/2015 11:23

YANBU
No need for a pissy (no pun intended) attitude.

Where did she get the idea it was for a cold if you hadn't had the chance to say anything?

BlueJug · 09/12/2015 11:24

You were probably the 100th patient she'd seen complaining about a cold. she shouldn't have jumped to a conclusion but I can see why she might.

Don't worry about it. Get well soon.

LaContessaDiPlump · 09/12/2015 11:26

I'd feel a bit taken aback by her attitude, certainly! However this very firmly sounds like it was her and not you. Don't let it worry you, you did nothing wrong.

I went to the nurse once for a smear and she got the hump royally because I'd had one not too long ago and in her opinion did not need another one. She was a bit rough while doing the exam IMO and I must have obviously been a bit shaken because she was clearly remorseful and trying to be kinder to me for the rest of the appointment. Hopefully the nurse you saw yesterday had a similar moment of realisation that she'd been a bit unfair later on.

Feel better soon

Original poster

ValiantVelvet · 09/12/2015 11:35

Not sure why she thought I was there for the cold- she'd walked past me in the waiting room a couple of times and I was coughing/blowing my nose.

OP posts:

littlemermaid80 · 09/12/2015 11:41

Well if she just "assumed" the reason you were there without waiting for you to even open your mouth, then she's the one who is in the wrong.

However, remember that this time of year is always going to be stressful and busy. Maybe she was tired, upset, exhausted etc. Doesn't excuse rudeness but look at it from a human standpoint.

Hope you're feeling better today?

Micah · 09/12/2015 11:49

YABU for calling it a "water infection"

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost · 09/12/2015 11:51

I'd be putting in a compaint personally. If I encountered rudness like that from a "professional" jumping to conclusions. Being stressed is no free ticket to nastiness.
Also Contessa. She was rough with you during a smear. That was abuse.

EvaBING · 09/12/2015 11:52

You could have been there about anything! How unprofessional of her!

OnlyLovers · 09/12/2015 11:56

I'd complain too. She jumped to conclusions and was unprofessional towards you.

TimeToMuskUp · 09/12/2015 12:00

YANBU because nobody should be made to feel crappy about seeking medical advice (except the utter douches who sit down at A&E on Saturday evening's with kids who clearly haven't got anything more than a scraped elbow or cough).

However, a few friends of mine are nurses and work twice as hard this time of year treating the Google-Doctors who come in after looking up their symptoms online and declaring "I've ebola" or some other nonsense. So I get why practitioners might be a bit fraught. But being fraught and being a dick to patients aren't the same thing, so nope, definitely not BU. Hope you're feeling brighter today.

Jackie0 · 09/12/2015 12:00

We don't have walk ins where I live , they sound like a brilliant idea .

Katastrophe13 · 09/12/2015 12:02

It doesn't matter how many time wasters she'd seen with a cold or if she was in a bad mood for whatever reason. She is a professional and should listen to her patients without jumping to conclusions. Can you tell I also have bitter experience of this?! It's how mistakes are maxed though and discourages people from seeing a medic when they really need one. Hope you feel better soon.

DollyParsnip · 09/12/2015 12:09

I went to a walk in with a horribly swollen and inflamed foot (unable to weight bear) on a Sunday. Got a 5 minute tirade from the nurse about how I was wasting their time because I hadn't injured it. I was referred to their GP (who, the nurse said I may not get to see if he agreed with her that it wasn't in their remit to treat). He was ok, but I ended up in hospital for 5 days with cellulitis a few days later. Not just down to the nurse, but her attitude made me delay seeing my own GP as I thought I'd be wasting their time.

As an aside, I also got the same attitude from the GP in A & E after being sent there by my own Dr. Accused my Dr of wasting their time as I hadn't injured it. Her attitude changed once she saw my foot!

TalkinPeace · 09/12/2015 12:14

OUr Walk in centre was closed last month.
You are lucky to still have one.

maybebabybee · 09/12/2015 12:36

Not a walk in thing but I went to my antenatal unit with reduced movement last week (27 weeks pregnant and he hadn't only moved once, very faintly, all day after kicking solidly for weeks on end) and was utterly dismissed by the midwife who said 'you didn't even need to bother phoning at this stage of gestation, we have emergency cases to see'.

I have MH issues and was really upset by this. Massively put me off phoning for anything else tbh.

LaContessaDiPlump · 09/12/2015 12:36

Iliveinalighthousewithaghost it wasn't dreadful, just a bit more.... robust than I'd been used to. Also it can't have been that bad because it turned out that I was 4 days pregnant with DS2 and he was not dislodged

I've seen her lots of times since then for the kids and their jabs and she has always been pleasant, respectful, friendly and gentle with them. I think it was just one very off day.

LaContessaDiPlump · 09/12/2015 12:39

maybebabybee I've noticed a certain lack of empathy in HCPs if you go in before 28 weeks or so and tell them that you're scared for the baby. Even my very gentle and kind midwife didn't seem to get why I was worried with DS2 (bleeding at 16 weeks, only time it ever happened).

I'm sure your little one is fine, don't worry

AnonymousBird · 09/12/2015 12:45

OP, I went to see the university doctor, who had a right go at me for going there before surgery started (I had been prepared to wait) and then for "not really knowing what was wrong with me" which I didn't, I wasn't the doctor. I just knew something was wrong with me, so had gone along to see the doctor

Less than 10 minutes later I was on my wait to A&E with acute appendicitis.

NoTimeLikeSnowTime · 09/12/2015 13:00

Don't get upset about it, it's not personal, it's someone having a crappy day/week/month, and dreading 3 more months of it ahead.

Last winter we had coughs and colds and bug after bug for months in this family. I eventually shuffled to the doctors to say "I think this cough's been hanging around a bit too long". The Dr did a bit of gentle eye-rolling and started her spiel about how they can't treat viruses (which I knew, obvs), then listened to my chest and realised I had a fairly hefty chest infection that needed antibiotics to clear.

If you know you're not a timewaster, then I wouldn't take it personally. Obviously a lot of people are.

Hellochicken · 09/12/2015 13:02

It's not great, and her mistake. Not sure that berating you for attending with a cold, when you don't have one, is a "horrible" experience. If you had attended with a cold she should tell you it is inappropriate to attend a walk-in centre.
Certainly don't think warrants a complaint as pp said.

WoodHeaven · 09/12/2015 13:19

The problem is that when HCP are unprofessional like this, it puts people who do need the care to actually go and see them.

So yes it is a pain when people come even though they could have huessed they didn't need it.
But then they aren't doctors (see the pp with the appendicitis) and that's what doctors and nurses are here for.

What is happening here is that we are paying the price for an overstretched health service (HCP aren't as porfessional, they are stressed and expect people to look afer themselves more/better wo actually telling them how to).

FreeWorker1 · 09/12/2015 13:32

I don't go to my GP unless I know what is wrong with me.

I find going to NHS website looking up the condition by symptom and then checking the relevant tests and medication and taking along the NHS pages printed out and giving them to him works wonders.

In fact when I went to him with fibromyalgia he took the pages (along with my own notes) so he could keep them and use them to write out his letter to the consultant. I am being treated now with the drug I asked for and feel much better.

Going along and saying 'I don't know what is wrong with me' really must fill a GP with dread.

didyouwritethe · 09/12/2015 13:52

I don't know what we can do about the open hostility towards patients now shown by HCPs. No-one pulls them up about it - on the contrary, as on this thread, people say, well, they must be busy, ie they are entitled to behave as they like. Doing a smear roughly as revenge? Nice.

Yokohamajojo · 09/12/2015 14:06

I have so much respect for nurses and anyone working within health care but I have to say that all the nurses I have met in GPs and health clinics/Ante natal clinics (bar one fantastic who helped me when I was 39wks pregnant and my mum died) have been quite rude and uninterested. If I hadn't had these experiences, and I very very rarely need to go to the doctors, I probably would ask to see the nurse for minor things rather than my GP, but I don't.

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