My Mum is 69 years old, she has had Rheumatoid Arthritis since she was 36, has had two surgeries for scoliosis of the spine, has a hiatus hernia and was in ICU 10 years ago for double pneumonia. Basically, she is not in the best health.
At the beginning of August she got sudden and severe back pain. She went to an out of hours clinic and it was discovered that she had shingles. She was really ill with it and in tremendous pain, no painkillers were touching it. She called the Doctors several times and had about three consultations with different doctors who increased her pain killers. Only one of them had bothered to read her notes before calling her.
Towards the end of September, she was getting even worst pain around the rash area (left side rib). One morning she coughed and there was black mucus in it. She called the Doctor and this one was pretty good and sent her for a chest xray. A week past and she had heard nothing so she called the surgery. A Doctor that she had never spoken to before called her and said "Ah yes! You have COPD!'. She was stunned at this as she had never been diagnosed with COPD, he also had no idea that she had shingles. She has never smoked in her life or been exposed to chemicals that may have caused COPD. The call was left at that apart from her being in a terrible state that nobody seemed to be taking her seriously or listening to her.
The following day after bringing up more black mucus and feeling like she was losing her mind, my Dad called 111 and an ambulance was sent out. Her oxygen levels were low, her pulse rate was high and she had a fever. She was taken to hospital and after Covid-19 results was admitted to the High Dependency Ward with Pneumonia. That night my Dad was told she would need to go into an induced coma.
As it turned out, she narrowly averted this but spend 5 days in high dependency and the rest of the time on the Respiratory ward, making her hospital stay 2 weeks. She has developed Empyema which she has been told she will need an operation for at Guys Hospital but they want to avoid this because she has become so underweight, 6 stone, as she was unable to eat during the two months she had shingles.
I believe that the doctor that called her the day before her admission was negligent. He told her she had COPD, she doesn't. He hadn't bothered to read her notes before speaking to her. Why were further tests not offered to her to ascertain the cause of the black mucus? Bearing in mind her age and health, why was she never offered a face to face appointment. Possibly what he saw was the Empyema that had been caused by pneumonia.
AIBU - We should just leave it at that.
YANBU - You have good reason to raise a complaint even if it only leads to that Doctor bothering to read a patient's notes before calling them in the future.