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?

The OP had recently used ear plug so had possibly pushed it further in, also might have an infection now

Red flags signs for a hip fracture would be an inability to bear weight. Klinik would stop your assessment and tell you to go to a+e if you had such symptoms.

What did they do once they knew your hip was fractured? Did you have surgery? What was the treatment?

Oh no, I know you've had some shit flung at you but please let us know how you get on. Hope it's all OK.

i think the OP needs to take some ownership also, she chose to leave A+E despite thinking her condition was bad enough to be there. She wasn’t sent away by the nurse, she left because she was upset. That’s all her.

@Lexibletheflexible I could just about bear weight but it was extremely painful. It is an incomplete fragility fracture due to known osteoporosis (one of the big red flag on my medical records, along with a historic pelvic fragility fracture). After diagnosis I was non-weight bearing for 6 weeks, now partially weight bearing 14 weeks in. Still may require surgical fixation depending on results of repeat MRI. As mentioned I had been walking on it for 10 days prior.

upset the overworked nurse didnt say please and thank you.

Please don’t be stupid. The nurse was rude and dismissive. It was not about her saying please and thank you. I don’t care how overworked she is, she did not need to behave like that.

I have been a doctor for 30 years. I am from the era where we did 56 hour shifts with no sleep. Not once have I been rude to a patient. Because that’s unprofessional and disrespectful.

Like many on here you are sooo desperate to prove the OP wrong and nitpick. But if you read all the posts properly, you’ll be embarrassed and see how stupid you are being and how wrong you are.

So rest basically?

You shouldn't have left A&E in the first place, but I am sure you know that now! I hope you get it sorted.

You don’t stop do you?! You still think every practice behaves like your one and your experiences are universal. You do know that not every GP practice uses ‘Klinik’?! I’m in London and I’ve never heard of it. You really need to get out of your own little world.

Most practices use online triage since covid. Might be through your NHS app like it used to be with ours. Worked exactly the same. Sick people get seen promptly.

So, knowing this,why did you leave a&e? Please go back and don't let yourself be pushed out again. If I decided a&e is necessary I wouldn't leave until a doctor okayed it.

I think you need to take some ownership of your claim that the nurse was correct.

Yes conservative management with crutches and monitoring by orthopaedics. Plus physiotherapy and hydrotherapy. I'm not entirely sure what your point is, but my original point was that if had waited for my appointment at the GP my high risk injury which required strict non weight-bearing may have progressed to a full fracture and required a hip replacement. And more generally that most of us can't just magic up a GP appointment within an hour when we need an x-ray!

If your leg hurts, rest it. If you can't bear any weight on it, go to a+e.

Ah you got me lol
the nurse was correct, she should have seen her GP and shouldn’t have waited weeks to get it sorted in A+E.
the nurse told her what she should’ve done and didn’t send her away

People often don’t realise that an “emergency” isn’t always something that just happened or involves a limb hanging off. An emergency can often present as a symptom or group of symptoms that appear much more subtle, but to a doctor are actually red flags indicating the need for emergency treatment if the patient is to avoid permanent damage or a much more complex and catastrophic outcome.

Also, something going on days or weeks doesn’t necessarily make something a non-emergency. Indeed, symptoms that do not improve or that get worse with a history over days or weeks can often suggest even more of an emergency as the window for optimal treatment closes and a patient could be heading into serious infection or other complications.

OP I’m sorry that the nurse was so dismissive. Just last year I was treated dismissively by a nurse and it nearly cost me my life as in reality I was in a very serious way. I hope your ear gets sorted.

And we did used to have Klinik and it was better because the requests were reviewed by a GP. Now it's Rapid Health and it's all AI which misses stuff...

😂 Okay dear. Funnily enough A&E took me very seriously. No complaints there.

@alfagirl73 it's awful isn't it something very deep has gone wrong with the NHS

Hope they get it out ok for you.
You should complain about the way you were treated last night.

Yanbu. Just because you work for the NHS, doesnt mean you get to be rude.

That nurse should work in the private sector then, since shes so important.

The nurse told her to leave the MIU she was in and go to the gp, who told her to go back there, so in what way was the nurse right?
It can be pretty difficult to defy a health professional who says you're in the wrong place so I don't blame the OP for leaving even though she should have stayed.

my mum got bitten by a cat, called 111 as I know cat bites are gross but my mum wouldn’t believe me… 111 told her as long as the cat was vaccinated she’d be fine.. 2 days later she was in agony, arm swollen and inflamed.. GP said she should have called out of hours or gone straight to A&E for treatment!
111 can also also prescribe things in an emergency (if on your repeat/ out of hours) so they are useful for that… although what they deem as urgent is different from what we would… a friend of mine had their insulin injection pen break, 111 said this wasn’t urgent (not sure how you’d inject without it!!!) anyway luckily I had spares and gave her one of mine!

Wish everywhere did this..

we were in A&E the other day and got wheeled through the adult bit on our way up to children’s ward… god it was packed with old people laid in beds in corridors and stank!! It was horrendous!!

Then it was an 'emergency' two weeks before when it happened.