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?

All very well saying that but not all places have those separately to the actual hospital. Where I live doesn’t.

There are signs everywhere about "zero tolerance for rude behaviour to medical staff"

...pity we patients can't have the same!

Yep. It told me to go to a&e for eczema once. I just wanted help with getting a GP appointment.

I’ve found it’s much more useful to phone, but every single encounter is recorded on your record. I find that annoying.

Miu is exactly where you should be - your gp can do nothing to sort this. Go back, it’s where you were told to go by 111. Incidentally I also had an unpleasant experience with our local MIU this week - at ours you have to make an appointment - I rang them to say I had a dc with an injury (open & bleeding) and they just flatly & rudely said ‘no space today’, I asked where else they’d recommend I try instead and she said ‘no idea, how would I know?’. I ended up driving to another miu an hour away who sorted the injury really efficiently and quickly. I get they are under pressure but being rude is just so unnecessary- especially in your case where you’ve gone home with an issue that really needs sorting! Get yourself back there and put on a thicker skin. Hope they sort you asap.

Play on their hierarchy.

"She was sent here by her doctor. You think a doctor is wrong? That is concerning. Can you put this in writing so that I can take it back to the surgery. You're sure the doctor is wrong? If that is the case I will make a complaint to the GP surgery saying the nurse said the doctor there was wrong."

Then watch then go "uuhhh no errr no no of course not uhhhh"

It’s hugely difficult to get a GP appointment for many. Surgeries switch off online booking early in the day for many and there is more often than not a 2 week wait if you do get to fill out a form. No GP is going to fiddle around with the inner ear. I guess the op is supposed to wait until the object has got infected and she’s rolling round in agony.

I like that tactic! Will use it at some point no doubt. My dd has 4(!) friends who have been sent to our local hospital with suspected appendicitis in recent years and then had them burst because they leave them hanging around for days….

No, but the fact she could wait for a date and time that was convenient to her suggests that it’s not quite a&e material. Go to MIU.

Sounds like you were in the right place and she perhaps misunderstood the situation.
From reading your post it sounds like you have been in pain for a while (but you just thought it would get better/was general earache) so maybe she couldn't quite understand why it has taken until the evening when it is busy for you to decide to do something about it. Likewise if you included the details about staying in a hotel, attending another appointment she may have felt like you were trying to use minor injuries rather than seeing a GP and were suggesting that there was now an item in your ear as a way to get around waiting for a GP appointment (as it does sound a bit odd as an adult that this item must have been in your ear a while but only now have you realised it).
I would go back to minor injuries first thing when hopefully it is quieter. Don't give the whole back story. Focus on there is an earring back lodged in my ear, pain is getting worse.

If you can afford it, could you see a private ENT specialist as an emergency? Ears and hearing are so precious. You shouldn’t have to but it feels like this is rapidly getting worse. Infections in that area can leave scarring with life changing impact.

She did go to the MIU

She doesn’t have to do that ffs. She can go back to MIU. She would’ve had an on call ENT come down and see her if she’d not thrown a tantrum in a&e.

A day! Because of another medical appointment she’d had to wait ages for, for her child.

She wouldn’t have needed to A&E can and do remove foreign objects from ears. Advice from anywhere re a foreign object you can’t get out of your ear - is go to A&E.

There was zero need for the receptionist to be so rude either.

Irrelevant. Accidents and emergencies cannot be delayed. If it was causing her that much pain she would’ve found another way to get her child to the appointment and seek relevant medical care for herself.

She could’ve had that if she didn’t walk out. It’s entirely appropriate as part of the triage process to challenge why medical care was denied, in this case partly due to a night away in a hotel. We need to start pushing back on people who abuse resources like a&e.

There is zero law, ban or protocol that says because you’ve waited a day you can’t use A&E.

Some NHS staff are just horrible you really need to stand up for yourself and call them out for it. If i was you i would call the gp this morning not to ask for an appointment but to explain the situation to the receptionist and ask if this is something the gp will be able to sort and if not where are you supposed to go you will most likely be sent back to minor injuries unit and if you are and they deal with it I'd contact pals about how you where treated.

No but there should be. The clue is in the name. It’s for the most urgent medical care needs. If you can delay in order to go and galivant in a hotel, then you don’t really need A&E do you?

She didn’t abuse resources at all. We absolutely need to start pushing back on rude NHS staff, the same as in any sector.

Pals because she was appropriately triaged and called out for her absolutely ridiculous misuse of a&e?

I got a raging infection in my breast after an excision biopsy - big needle, 18 samples of tissue taken. Advised by 111 to go to A& E. Triaged by very nice nurse. Then seen by utter cow of a nurse who talked to me as I were a) stupid. b) had done the wrong thing in coming to A&E

If they have a problem with 111 then they need to sort that out, not take their frustration out on patients, The minute they forget what it's like to be a patient they should not be in that job. I have worked for the NHS, and there are people who have lost their humanity. They would not get away with it in any other field.

Edited to add. this is not the norm.

And going a day or more later because the condition has clearly worsened is quite normal. You might think something is just a mild issue that'll go away by itself so you don't go to the GP but then it suddenly gets worse and too bad to wait for a GP appointment

She absolutely did. This was neither an accident nor an emergency. MIU or even the GP was an appropriate first point of call.

OP was clearly aware that there was something in her ear and prioritised other things over it.