A & E Wait Time Overnight With NO Doctors!!

[ShabbyNat]

Last Saturday night I arrived at my local A & E at 7.45pm by ambulance, with lights & sirens going with a suspected stroke.
Went through Triage within about 20 minutes after being kept waiting in the back of the ambulance for 30 minutes, which meant the ambulance could not go back out to help anyone else in that time!!
After Triage, I then sat in A & E until 5am Sunday morning, with obs only being done once & me asking several times "what was I waiting for?"-bloods, "how long is the wait for my bloods to be taken?"-no bloods, your waiting to see the doctor, "how long to see the doctor?"-there are no doctors in A & E!!
Lots of nurses & cleaners though, with the cleaners looking bored stiff as no cleaning really needed doing as no treatments were going ahead & nobody was really moving about much as it was overnight-too tired!!, & nobody really eating as too tired & ill !!
I ended up walking out at 5am & going to my GP on Monday morning, who diagnosed Bells Palsy.
So, my AIBU is, after stewing on it for a week now, AIBU to be getting quite angry about an A & E department who did not have even 1 doctor in the whole department overnight to actually see anyone??

Someone I know has a husband who's in recovery from a stroke. He had a fall, hit his head and lost consciousness. He was waiting outside A&E last night for 7 hours in an ambulance.

Sorry to hear about your Bells Palsy. I am currently suffering and it is really not nice. Some tips I have learnt are use Nexcare Sensitive Tape. It's pricey, but it is so much easier on the eye when you have to take them shut and remove the next day. Also use drops all the time! Keep the eye moist at all costs. See an eye specialist as they will keep an eye on any dry patches that can occur that could lead to an ulcer.

Also rest! It really does help and hopefully you will get some movement back.

I would trust them enough to know the difference between Bells Palsy and a stroke. I’ve had a stroke and three TIAs. I was seen very quickly when I had the stroke. Maybe the communication wasn’t great but I think the reason you were left is because they became certain that you hadn’t had a stroke. The window of opportunity to treat a stroke is very small.

Don't be angry with the hospital, or the doctors. Be angry with the government who've run the NHS into the ground. People seem to be focusing their anger in completely the wrong directions at the moment...

The service isn't good enough because too many people go to A&E for a minor injury, some paracetamol, or some other noddy reason that they could treat themselves with OTC medicine or bandages, or with advice from the pharmacist.
Anyone who can walk out of A&E because they are fed up of waiting shouldn't really have been there in the first place.

All...I might add, whilst sitting in a room with posters on the wall stating "could it be sepsis? Every hour matters..."
PALS complaint led to a mealy mouthed reply that mum was "far to unwell to speak to them"
No shit!

What GP, pharmacy or mh team!?

I agree many folk turn up who shouldn't bit your reply shows you have NO clue how bed it is trying to access primary care atm!

A&E is an awful place to work right now. We’re running on winter numbers in terms of patients, seeing children with winter respiratory illnesses and are overwhelmed with patients, but we’re running on summer staffing. It’s a shit show and staff are leaving in droves.

I'm sure it is.
It's worse to nearly die whilst waiting for treatment though?
Mum was rushed to resus a few weeks ago...a poor woman DIED in the waiting area. Simply died in her chair.
That's the nhs in 2022 folks.

To address the op:
We were told (after 15 hours) that she round be seen once the morning shift drs arrived.
I think there were 2 drs that night in the triage area and this was a Saturday.

The thought of having one of my parents having to be admitted to a and e scares me to death. None of us hospital goers, don't ever waste their time, but posts like on this thread keep me awake at night. It's scary.

This winter the nhs will finally buckle. People will die in corridors, on ambulances, in their homes...
It's broken already but the public don't want to know

I was in A & E a couple of weeks ago for complications with my two chronic conditions. Unfortunately A & E is the only place to get treatment for them ( the minor hospitals in the area don’t carry the drugs I need and neither does the GP which is ridiculous but there we are).

I was waiting 8 hours for the meds I needed and receiving pain medication in a plastic chair because there were no beds in majors ( where I usually have to go to be mo I tired closely ). Again, not ideal but I accepted the fact there were others who were very much a higher priority.

However, what pissed me off, and what ALWAYS pisses me off when I have to go in ( luckily a better meds regime from the GP and my Consultants mean that it’s a rarity nowadays ) is that pissed up twats ALWAYS get a bed in majors. Lying down sleeping off their excesses, being looked after so much better than the poor 90 year old man with chest pain, a lady suffering a miscarriage and a suspected stroke patient who were all with me in chairs. Disgusting. The fact that the police also had to be present for 3 of these piss artists ( so 6 different Coppers ) makes me rage and it’s so unfair. Where’s the personal responsibility here??

Yes Boris is a twat and the NHS is severely undefunded. Staff at breaking point - I’m ex NHS myself so understand. But I can’t help getting angry about the fact people who choose to get into such a state and even worse injure themselves or others in the process get better treatment than those of us who are there through no fault of our own!

People go to A&E because they literally cannot access a doctor in the traditional way. It’s not right but it’s the way it is now. Primary care doesn’t work. A&E doesn’t work.

This makes my blood boil. The one thing that the government of the day must be able to do is run decent public services. The NHS is not functioning properly and this is unacceptable. I am also sick of people turning it round on the people who attend as if they are in the wrong for attending. It is a service that is meant to be used by people who need medical attention. It is unacceptable to wait that long.

Like others have said there would have been Dr's.

All those saying "well it was only Bell's palsy" - if they had told the OP that to start with she wouldn't have stayed. The point is they scared her by saying they suspected a stroke, then left her sat there!

The NHS is a shambles. I am no longer proud or grateful for it. It is now directly responsible for so much neglect and so many deaths that it should have been urgently raked over the coals.

It's crumbling and I don't know a single person who has not had a horrific experience at its hands

The worst part is we are at its utter mercy.

i dont know why this is an aibu
there is nothing to vote
the bells palsy is not your fault
the doctor was presumably busy

This is scary, this is the height of summer what is the winter going to be like.

Like a warzone

Not sure why some posters are pointing out that there must have been a doctor, though - as if that changes things for OP. There might as well not have been as far as she’s concerned because she didn’t get to see one.

Its dangerous to carelessly assert that OP ‘must’ have been correctly triaged, and this or that ‘must’ have happened. Did none of you see the terrifying thread of medical fuck-ups recently? It’s just as likely that OP’s outcome was a fortunate coincidence- ie it wasn’t a stroke but no one would have intervened even if it had been.

there are fuck ups yes but there are many many success stories, which we dont talk about

Are we going to wait for waves of people dying in their chairs before we acknowledge how broken it is?
We’re the 6th richest country in the world!

Meanwhile there’s always £££ for the gov to piss away on unnecessary things cue contracts for their mates