Bringing your whole fucking family to A&E

[changedlife]

Waiting to be seen at A&E. sent here by GP because DH has had an adverse blood result that needs to be dealt with.

A&E packed as usual. To be expected. However one family is here with one woman. There are 5 grown adults with the patient who is in her 30s... I don't know her issue but laughing a joking with the family. Just to add to the joy their phones go off constantly whereupon they give a blow by blow run down of her current medical state (she's hurt her foot it seems - from the latest phone update. )

DH is disabled. There is nowhere to sit In A&E. Foot-family are settled in and have actually just had a KFC delivery. I swear it's like an evening out for them.

DH can't stand. So have sent him back to wait in the car - which as he has a blue badge - is quite close. I'll call him when his turn comes. As I can stand.. However .. AIBU to think you don't need FIVE adults accompanying you to A&E. ? Especially with some really poorly older people have had to resort to sitting on the floor ? (And no one has volunteered their seat for them. )

I hope your husband gets some rest tonight - at least he’s being seen and is out of the car.

On a similar but different point, I remember taking my baby in for an outpatients appointment and another woman was in the waiting room with her 6 or 7 kids. It made me quite sad that she didn’t have other options to leave them and how hard it must have been for her going anywhere. Must have been holiday time as I’d assume they’d have been in school but I was stressed out just with one baby in the hospital let alone having the baby plus lots of kids to manage.

I really hope your husband is sorted quickly and then complain to PALS about the seated security guard and nurse in charge doing nothing to ensure the frail were given seats above accompanying relatives.

Bloody selfish

Yes I’ve seen people like this; it’s a family day out. It should be on person to accompany an adult, children are different.

I have seen groups of people going to A&E for the heating… decent security would help a lot and also the staff.

Honestly couldn’t think of a worse night out.

I’ve been in a&e where they chucked everyone out and said patient only!

Recently in A&E and a family group were on FaceTime calls to different people. Then started commenting on and turning the camera on to other patients to show their family.

Having had the joy of their conversation at very close quarters.. I fear you may be right .

The whole thing was made even more joyful by rhetorical addition of possibly the worlds most annoying ring tone at maximum decibels roughly every minute or two - do you know the one that goes 'shrill ring hello Moro' 'hello moto'... operated by the matriarch of the family- who didn't appear to know how to answer it for at least 30 seconds a time..

Haven't heard that ring tone since 1995 .. but now traumatised by it 😂

Your only solution is to ask staff for a chair, or even a wheelchair for your husband to sit in.
The group of finger lickers sound like uncivilised entitled apes. I wouldn’t approach them - you’ll get a mouthful of abuse or a punch in the face (I’ve seen this happen in A&E). Even security staff won’t approach some groups of people and I can’t say I blame them.
What is wrong with people?
YANBU!!

You can’t order kfc to hospitals

*rhetorical - glorious !

I’ve had to take DH into A&E with heart problems before. On both occasions I was sent straight home after he was checked in.

We had a very similar experience a few months back. I accompanied my mum to A&E and there was a 20 something lady with about 4 friends and family members with her. My mum was taken through and I stayed with her whilst she was admitted and taken to a ward. This took maybe 2 hours. By this time, when I walked through A&E to go home, the person was still having the time of her life but now with about 8 other people. Also on the phone/facetiming. It was genuinely like a night out. I’m surprised they didn’t crack open a can of Stella.

The same man who ordered a KFC to the antenatal ward at 2am, full of women with hypermesis!!

He couldnt believe we told him to get out!

Eugh my extended family are like this. They thrive on the drama. They love being miserable. They love getting a good diagnosis and moping about it. The phonecalls, the Facebook posts, the check in at A&E, the cryptic snippet of a photo so everyone asks "you ok hun?" It's embarrassing.

I never gave into the ridiculousness, hence I'm the black sheep.

My local one is 20 mins away in a taxi. I broke my ankle last year and I went myself as I knew I'd be there for hours and didn't want dh and 2 kids with me. I took my portable phone charger. Turned out I was there just after 1pm and was home by 5.30pm.

I think it’s fair enough to have 1 person accompanying you. Th thread is about those who turn up en masse & treat it like a day out!

I wonder if your name is Rees-Mogg? Or Montgomery-Taylor-Thomas?

YANBU.

It's a spectator sport for these plebs.

And it's always the same type of person who turns up mob handed to places like this.

One of the reasons I paid for private vet insurance when I was entitled to use PDSA many years ago -the waiting room was rammed with out of control dogs and frantic kids and hangers on.
You don't get that in private practice as much.

Well done!
What a total dick move to order a stinking take away in a room full of nauseous , vomiting woman, where smell can so easily trigger puking.

I had Norovirus badly this year, and even my dog's good quality food aroma had me retching into a bucket as I was feeding her.

Normally the food smells quite pleasant.

YANBU
However I did feel bad once as I needed to take my elderly dad to A and E, the first day of the summer holidays, and I had no one to leave DC (about 7 and 10 at the time) with so I had to take them as well. None of us took a seat that a patient needed though.

It’s ridiculous. I also remember the sappy dads sitting with their partners in the waiting room for scans/check ups at maternity unit. They’d happily let all the other heavily pregnant women stand… One day this member of staff bowled out of the office, shouting ‘unless you have a baby inside you, you don’t need a seat, wait outside or stand up’ Loved her 😂

Sorry, I disagree. If you are ill enough to consider going to A&E, then you need a chair to sit on for the long wait and those who are escorting the ill person should have to stand if there are not enough seats for the ill.

I think it is just common decency but obviously not that common anymore!

I’m guessing this thread is going to be a unanimous YANBU. I do understand having to bring kids (if no childcare), and I also understand some patients might want 2 adults with them (whether it’s both parents or one might be a carer, one might be the driver or a translator etc) - but I just can’t think of a reason for there to be a whole group of adults? Because as you said, I have rarely seen an A and E where there weren’t always lots of people standing or camped out on the floor as it is! Very thoughtless.

I can confirm that Easter day and Christmas Eve/Christmas Day are usually quiet days in A&E. For some reason several members of my family always seem to need emergency treatment on these days. The waiting rooms are always nearly empty, and one time when Ds2 was admitted on Christmas Eve, whilst we were waiting in the peads treatment area of A&E 2 of the nurses were able to chat with us as they had no patients to see! They said that it is always quiet when people have better things to do. This contrasted with another time when we had to take DS2 to A&E on a Saturday for a broken bone where (we were dealt with quite quickly), there was no seat for a woman holding a 6 week old baby that was making a terribly noise as they struggled to breathe (she'd seen triage and apparently the baby was fine to wait) because there was at least 6 whole families consisting of Mum, Dad and in some cases Grandparents and swarms of kids running around shouting. Several babies were allowed to crawl round the floor (which I just thought seemed like the worst floor to let a baby crawl on). It was chaos, and that was just the paediatric side. From what I could see the adult side was even busier with the queue going out the building.

DP and I can't think of anywhere worse to have to spend time, especially on festive holidays or weekends, hence us doing anything we can to avoid going there unless we really have to. But some people really do seem to view it as a chance for a family day out.

Just in case anybody wondered why DP and I needed to both be there, at that time I had to be there as I knew all of DS2's medical history (DP is rubbish with stuff like that), but I also had health problems which meant I wasn't able to go out on my own. When well I would have been there on my own with DS2.