I get that a&e is busy, but was not expecting to be spoken to so rudely

[mitsicar]

Went to a&e tonight. I have a foreign object stuck in my ear. I did not know it was in there until someone looked last night before I left my house and said i should get it looked at. Wasn't able to go to a&e today as my son had his own medical appointment in another city that I have waited months for and we were in a hotel for last night. There was no way I was cancelling it for my own ailment.

The pain has got significantly worse. Have shooting pains into my jaw and cheek bone and my ear is making clicking noises. This is since about lunch time today. Went to a&e this evening and the triage nurse asked me how long it had been in my ear. I said I suspect a few weeks, but I thought I just had an earache and it went away after a while so thought it was gone. Got some new foam ear plugs last week (which obviously pushed the foreign body in further!) and am now suffering for it. I hadn't finished when she cut me off and said 'well I don't really understand why you have picked this evening to come to a&e' and told me I would be better off going to my GP. I am in some pain but ended up leaving because she just made me feel like I had done an awful thing by heading straight after my son's appointment. I spoke to 111 earlier in the day and they told me to go to a&e asap because I could risk my hearing and that whilst it isn't life threatening, it is both an accident and an emergency. I asked if I could wait until morning and they said no. This was the 111 dr not the triage staff. I have no idea if this is the correct advice.

AIBU to think I didn't do anything wrong? I told her a medical professional has looked at it (a friend of mine who is a dr of 30 years) and said it needs ent because of how far in it is and she actually rolled her eyes at me and said I should see an actual GP (I suspect by that she meant my own GP?) and that a&e were sending everyone to minor injuries and that cases like mine are the reason she now has a 6 hour waiting list.

Is this normal for a&e now? Is it so awful working there that being rude has just become the norm or do most people have a better bedside manner? I haven't been to a&e since I was a child and was really shocked by the way I was spoken to, after being advised to go there by 111 and a trusted friend who is a medical doctor (GP).

To add, she didn't look in my ear.

Would you have done anything different? Am I missing something?

I don't understand why you left after a nurse was rude.

You sound too self-involved, she is probably patching up road crash victims and God knows what all night, let it go and see a doctor ASAP.

She told me I am better off seeing my GP in the morning and that I didn't really need to be in a&e. So I just left. And am fully willing to accept that I probably should have stayed but I now have no idea who I am actually meant to see!

The nurse was rude and incorrect. I had something in my ear a couple of years back and was sent straight to A&E where they had to send for a doctor to retrieve it.

She was working in minor injuries (attached to the a&e) so I assume I was sent to the correct place. I just don't know what was so wrong with me going there (was sent there by the a&e receptionist) for an actual minor injury...

As someone who would examine this is GP, I am telling you now we wouldn’t get it out we would refer. What object is it and why is it there?

Call your gp first thing and request an emergency appointment. You could end up with a nasty infection

It is the back of an earring!

I think when you delay reporting they have that as a question to ask, you just need to be clearer that it’s now more painful. I know we all feel like we should be able to turn up and treated as utter royalty, but actually there just isn’t the time in the system for people to second guess

The Minor Injuries/Urgent Care dept might be better than A+E for you.
I wouldn't class your situation as an Accident or an Emergency.
She might have been rude....but to be honest I think she was right to say you shouldn't have been in the A+E department.
Edit : Sorry just read you were in Minor Injuries not A+E.
So I don't know why she said you shouldn't be there.
How odd.

Ok, my mistake, I thought you had just walked into an A&E after having something in your ear for a few days, sorry.

The clue is in the name
“Accident and Emergency”.

You haven’t had an accident.
Its been there for weeks, as you admit yourself.

This is a GP matter

Sorry to derail but how on earth did that happen. I was expecting you to say a piece of a cotton bud

I did but it is an a&e who send minor injuries to their minor injuries dept which is open 24/7.

This.
A&E is for when people need immediate medical treatment in life threatening situations.

111 really is ridiculous. They send everyone to A&E. I've stopped using it after 3 embarrassing visits to A&E.

Call your gp.

A GP will not touch it apparently. My friend, who has been a GP for 31 yrs said he sends all cases like this to a&e when it is right next to the ear drum as they are the only people with specialist tools to remove it. A referral to ENT takes weeks.

“I haven’t been to A&E since I was a child”- there you have it. This is sadly the reality of most A&E departments now, the NHS is on its knees and they really do have to prioritise real emergencies. She shouldn’t have been rude but give her a break- I’d probably be a bit snappy too on occasion if I had that job.

If it’s something that you haven’t had looked at for weeks I can see why she didn’t think it was an emergency. Speak to your GP.

Either when an earring fell out when I pulled a tshirt over my head (I distinctly remember it falling out and not being able to find the back!) or by some other bizarre mechanism!

@mitsicar personally I would go back to Minor Injuries in the morning.
Hopefully you will get it sorted.

I didn't know I had a bit of metal sat next to my ear drum until yesterday!

"[I] ended up leaving because she just made me feel like I had done an awful thing by heading straight after my son's appointment."

The reason is there in the original post.

So what is a 24 hr minor injuries that you can only access via the a&e reception for, if not for things like this?

Yes, and also because I was genuinely confused as to whether I needed a&e, minor injuries or my GP at this point...

Yes but in terms of the nurse’s understanding, you have been bothered by this for weeks- maybe she misunderstood that you’d only just discovered what the foreign object was. Like I say, give her a break.

If I were you I wouldn’t have left, but would have braced myself for a several hour wait. Last time I was in A&E (with a suspected mini stroke) I was there for 15 hours.

I think they class minor injuries as non-emergency i.e you are not in danger of dying on the floor but may need to be bandaged up or something, your ailment probably pissed them off because you were aware of it for a few days, A&E is generally swamped with people who don"t need to be there.