To think only the patient and maybe one companion needs to sit in the waiting room?

[BoobsOnTheMoon]

I'm at the (very small rural) MIU, on my own, waiting to get a burn looked at. Every single other patient has at least one person with them. There is only one other patient who has just one companion and that's an 8 week old baby!

There's an older baby with 3 adults.

A youngish girl with 2 parents and 2 other children.

A man who has brought 2 young adults (well old enough to leave at home or in the car) with him.

An elderly lady who had 2 adults with her and then another 2 adults came in to join them, but there were no chairs left to sit on so they pulled over a couple of patient wheelchairs and sat in those. The whole group (elderly lady included) are doing the cryptic crossword.

Wtf? Easily 3/4 of the people in this waiting room are not patients. Surely thats not normal, or is it?

But i assume you meant your dad was in a bed in a cubicle not sat in a waiting room for 18 plus hours with 3+ of you taking up chairs

I think it's lovely that people are so well accompanied though companions should yield their chairs to patients

I’m with you OP. I work in a similar environment and the amount of patients that attend with partners, friends 2-3 kids is insane.

iPads / phones with the sound up full blast

These should be banned. Adds so much stress.

i did have childcare but the advice was for the benefit of my dc, to take her sibling

You have no idea what people's circumstances are. Recently I was in a&e with me elderly father. My mother and my husband were also there. Due to very complex issues each person had to be there.

Don't judge.

I am judging why did any of you need to be there

my widowed dm always complains about couples going to the doctors surgery

as regards a and e, perhaps the accident happened while they were out as a family?

or perhaps people like the day out, wrong of course, yanbu

So you were in A&E, where people go for accidents and emergencies.

Not a minor injuries unit where people go with, you know, minor injuries.

It's not the same thing. I don't even mention A&E in my OP!

in our paediatric clinics one of the nurses had a bee in her bonnet, quite rightly, about the use of mobile phones, - parents should be supervising their children, not ignoring them, so she banned them, notice up on the door, do not use mobile phones in here, good for her. they should try that at A & E

When my 94 year old father became delirious DH and I drove him to A&E. My DB and DS turned up. We didn’t know it maybe the last chance to see hm.

One support person at most per patient. And it should be enforced. Noise, infection, dirt, confusion, smoke, lack of privacy and dignity, lack of seating all fed by these interlopers. And to all the people with an entourage and members of the entourages...you are no more important than anyone else!

The OP isn’t talking about major emergencies when the patient is unlikely to survive or situations where people need to bring caregivers/look after children. A larger group is totally understandable in those situations.

I couldn’t agree more, I’ve have worked in outpatient dept and sometimes it was like a family day out for some.
I get some patients may need more than one person. When other family members do not move for the actual patients to sit and wait is hight of bad manners.

Totally agree! I've seen whole families ordering takeaways and kids sitting in the chairs allocated for waiting patients. There should be a rule/notice for a maximum number of attendees

When I was waiting in A&E, weak and nauseous, a family of 2 adults and 3 children took a delivery of Kentucky Fried Chicken and sat and ate it. None of them were as poorly as I felt. I couldn't even tell which one of them was the patient. I was in surgery 5 hours later to remove an ovarian cyst.

They were sitting on chairs and eating and chatting while I was in dire need of immediate surgery. And a nurse had to intervene to make one of them give me a chair because I was sitting on the floor!! There is a real need to bring in some ground rules.

100% this. Ditto.
When I went to a miu at our local hospital after a bad injury there were so many people with other people accompanying them. Also, there were people who'd come themselves, checked themselves in and then their partner turned up with their baby. In one instance , the baby opposite proceeded to drop their dummy on the floor and the mum picked it up and put it back in their mouth.... On a hospital floor 🤢 yuk!!!!!
I don't understand it. People should stay away from hospitals unless they are caring for the injured persons mental/physical health while they are waiting. It isn't a jolly holiday, which you'd think it was tbh!!!

This behaviour baffles me. We had to do it a couple of times as I had eye appointments and couldn’t drive afterwards but DH took them for a walk/food so they weren’t in the waiting room too long.

I guess we don’t know what is going on in people lives but it is annoying!

That may seem excessive, but what are they supposed to do when they are on holiday together, my Dad is the only driver and my mum is the “carer” for all 3 of them?

That's an exception that everybody would understand.

Said by someone who's never sat in the bear garden that's A&E on a weekend night with entire families and drunks using the seating as an entertainment area after hours. It's really not needed..

was at deaths door a couple of times, so there was at least 3 adults (adult children)

If he was at death's door he wouldn't have been in A&E for very long surely?
He would have been whisked off for immediate treatment?

Must have been awful for you. I've had similar with both my brothers and they both died. But if a patient is at death's door they don't normally hang about in A&E,

During Covid people managed it and so by and large follow rules. Would be so easy to have a rule of max one companion (more if needed under certain circumstances)

Actually OP I'm in agreement with you and I've had this issue a few times in the last couple of years when I've had to accompany my ill brother to hospital.
There's been times when I've had to stand because of no seats and shame able bodied people to stand up so my brother can sit down (he's got serious heart issues).
When I've looked around the waiting rooms, there have been people with multiple children with them all seated, other large family groups and even groups of people eating takeaways as if it's a day out 🙄.
The receptionists have asked people to make room for others at various times but they might as well be talking to the wall. One person accompanying the sick person is really enough.

I agree with you. It’s just not necessary to have multiple adults there. It’s not a family day out ffs! I took my ds2 to A&E once out of hours when his chin needed gluing, I had to take ds1 as well. Out of every child there, ds2 was the only one who had just one adult with him. Every other child had either 2 or 3 adults with them and other children! Why couldn’t one of the healthy adults take the healthy kids home. It was midnight ffs.

My DP works in A&E and a lot of people bring a ridiculous number of unnecessary hangers-on

I have a family member who works in A&E and they get really a bit fed up with with the number of accompanying people. It makes it look more chaotic than it needs to be. Biggest number of family members accompanying so far has been 8. Mother had bad stomach ache. So everybody came along. I need say no more.

I don't think it's normal. Not something I have seen. Not something I would do. I couldn't think of many worse places to spend a Saturday afternoon so I'd only be there if I was genuinely needed.