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?

Taking a child to a long awaited medical appointment is not frolicking in a hotel.

Right! For the hard of reading. OP has said she called 111 who told her to go to A&E as they have the specialist tools to remove foreign bodies which the GP is unlikely to have.

A&E in most areas is split into Minors, Majors and an out of hours GP service .

The OP not medically trained followed medical advice (we can argue forever about 111 sending everyone up to A&E) .

Some of you need to get off your high horses and consider all the above.

OP you did nothing wrong and as a former nurse may I say this nurse was rude and unprofessional.

Try GP and they can do a referral letter to A&E if deem it necessary. Then at least you’ll have the ‘official’ ‘yes you need to be in A&E’ letter.

Some HCPs are just rude and dismissive, unfortunately.

Dr here. Having read that it was the back of an earring and it’s causing you pain I do think it’s fair to go to an A&E. BUT I think going in the evening wasn’t best as there are fewer staff to go around and , presumably, just one oncall ENT doctor who will be prioritising things like post tonsillectomy bleed. I imagine you could have waited all night possibly.

Try again in daytime hours where the wait should be somewhat shorter.

And the member of staff shouldn’t have been rude to you. Sounds like she has empathy burnout which many of us end up getting

It sounds like the nurse may have misunderstood after you saying it had been there for weeks.

The pertinent information you need to give is that you discovered the foreign object the day before, that you have had earache for weeks which went away but has come back much worse and has now spread, and that is it.

Do not mention your friend who is a doctor, unless you've seen them professionally, it is not relavent. It's not helpful and from friends I have in nursing the amount of times they are told "my friend who is a (insert medical professional here) told me to do this" it becomes infuriating.

No. She did not.

This is why people are waiting hours for corridor care. Because of people like you.

That makes no sense that means your child also having to sit with you for hours and potentially having no way of getting home if train tickets or whatever are booked.

You are completely clueless

Don’t be ridiculous. If you have a foreign object in your ear which you can’t remove you have to go to A&E or MIU. The triage desk which she was at decides which.

So where do you think she should go after she was triaged by 2 medical professionals to go to miu. 111 told her then the hospital triage desk also told her. Why do you think the nurse who spoke to her like shit is correct but the 2 other medical professionals she spoke to are wrong

It sounds exhausting and she could probably have removed it in the time it took to complain about how someone with a minor injury ended up in Minor Injuries.

The delay actually doesn't matter except in increasing the urgency of the situation. The nurse was just plain wrong.

Things in ears which are causing pain need A and E if there is no MIU, as it's a VERY rare GP who will have the skill, tools and/or inclination to attempt a removal, especially of something so small from an inflamed and possibly infected ear. 111 were correct and the nurse was wrong.

I would just go back to A&E now, you need that tsken out assp. Take whatever you need and be prepared to wait a long time.

And what the NHS doesn’t need is people like you giving out false advice which could lead to serious ear problems and longer ENT wait lists.

I did an ENT (ear, nose and throat ) job many years ago, and if someone had contacted us about this, we would have told you to come back in the morning to a "hot clinic" to look in your ear and remove.
111 should not have told you to go to A&E, unfortunately they do this a lot.

What the heck is “hot clinic”?

My local hospital which has really good wiating times for everything (got a routine scan in a week) say that if you can decide not to come to a+e right now and you can choose to come at a more convenient time for you, then it isn't an emergency. Go see a GP.

Its not as simple as that they will need the actual tools to be able to remove it.

Are people that thick that they can’t read and grasp what the OP has written? A&E and minor injuries are in the same place, my local hospital is set up exactly the same. They triage you and send you to the appropriate place depending on your injury. OP was not abusing resources or wasting anyone’s time.

It’s because you said it had been there for a few weeks so in her mind she was thinking in all that time you didn’t think to go see a GP? Which is actually kind of valid. A&E is for out of hours care or serious injuries / illnesses that require hospital rather than a GP.

You did what you were advised to do. She shouldn't have been rude though - there's a way of telling you you should have gone to GP. Having said all that, if I was in a lot of pain, I'd have waited it out. Unless you're already there, our A&E would already be busy at this time. Assuming you get someone sympathetic this morning, might be worth telling them what happened last night.

Your doctor will then refer you to the hospital. It might even be to a+e but with an appointment for removal. Not in the normal waiting list.

My husbands urgent referral to ENT is on month 7 of waiting. So I wouldn’t have bothered with that. Minor injuries was probably right so I’d have just told her the GP had refused to see me and sent me there.

👏🏻 exactly. A GP can refer urgently to ENT, contact the on call ENT doctor and arrange a same day appointment, or signpost to the MIU. Even an OOH GP at the hospital would’ve been a better option.

But then you went home!

I'm not saying you should be spoken to rudely but if that was all it took to send you home you cant have been that worried.
Have you gone back this morning or have you contacted your GP?