A&E

[imanastronaut]

I’m currently sat in A&E for an injury. Multiple people have been walking in and out (they’re patients) to pick up takeaways, go outside for a cigarette, go to the vending machines etc. patients are wearing wristbands so it’s obvious who’s who!

AIBU to think if you can do that, you should be directed away from A&E to somewhere more appropriate for a minor injury?!

My 11 year old son was recently in A&E after exhausting the resources of several other medical professionals, he had a serious infection in the tissue around his eye, one eye completely closed and a question around whether the infection was behind his eye and his sight was in jeopardy.
He's severely autistic and learning disabled, he ran up and down, climbed the chairs, caused general chaos, ate snacks, lay on the floor and was generally his usual high maintenance self. He absolutely needed to be in A&E as he needed IV antibiotics and further scans.

Simply not true at all !

Why do you think 3 meals are provided in hospitals. Do patients not eat?

Ive spent hours probably about 38 hours in a&e in the last month with my Nan that’s had falls, she needs getting off the floor and due to blood thinning medication she needs CT scans. She’s housebound and can’t get in and out a car so has to go by ambulance.
Shes usually hungry during a 12 hour hospital visit, and if she didn’t eat we’d probably have another fall.
I also would probably lose the plot if I couldn’t vape/eat whilst accompanying her.
maybe stop being so nosey on other people’s business and focus on your own health issues

Could you link to your research on this, please? I'm curious.

Edit to add: I was in A&E recently with a suspected detached retina. I was starving and pretty sure I could have vaped if necessary.

You’re completely wrong OP.

dd nearly died from bilateral pulmonary embolisms a few years ago. Now she doesn’t smoke but she sent me out to get her food while waiting around for ages. She was in pain (and very, very ill) but she was still hungry.

since then she’s been back to a&e a few times with chest pain and shortness of breath and I’ve seen how bad a&e is. You get chatting to people waiting and I’ve spoken to people who have been there 48 hours. They’ve been seen, they’ve had tests, they’re waiting for results, or another opinion or another test or a bed. Of course they need to eat at some point.

My son was sent to A and E to get a tetanus jab for a dog bite. He was in perfect health, mobile and could have been eating a takeaway there. He still needed to be there.

You cannot be serious.
Patients get what you call “crap food” from the vending machine because it is the nearest available food.
They aren’t going to be popping out to the nearest 5 star Michelin restaurant at this time ffs.

Good point. I mean if you can be on MN you can’t possibly need to be in a&e OP. 😂😉

Firstly, A&E stands for ACCIDENT and emergency - if you're waiting to find out if you've broken a bone, for example, why would you not be able to eat or vape?

Secondly, having sat in A&E awaiting tests to discover if I had a pulmonary embolism (I did - it could have killed me at any time) or 'just' an asthma flare, I can promise you I was starving. Had they not been able to get the blood tests done quickly, I'd have been looking for food!

Medical professional. You are absolutely 100% wrong. Even if pain was the only relevant symptom some pain makes people feel restless and like they can't sit still. There are also many, many emergencies (both physical and mental health related) where patients are able to walk around, eat, vape.

Also - your example of someone coming in because the antibiotics the GP gave them didn't work. The GP may well have given entirely appropriate advice that if symptoms worsening despite antibiotics the patient needed to attend A+E. This could be the situation for a patient with spreading cellulitis, quinsy, pneumonia, incipient sepsis.

You definitely can, last week the GP receptionist told my husband to go to A&E, he looked fine but was experiencing breathlessness. Due to the wait our son brought us a sandwich while we waited for blood test results. He was eventually admitted and it turns out he has acute myeloid leukemia.

Oh gosh, you’d better let Northwick Park A&E know how wrong they were to send someone round offering food to people being treated in A&E!

Admittedly, I couldn’t eat the meal they gave me while I was being nebulised, but, once that dose was finished, the cannula didn’t stop me from eating while I was waiting for the rest of my treatment (two more nebulisers plus antihistamines and steroids).

I really must have been a malingerer, because I was also busily knitting in the waiting room, and while on the nebulisers. I did have to be careful not to tangle my wool with the tubes and clips dangling from the cannula, though. But clearly I was absolutely wrong to take a calming activity with me to A&E.

I hope that, once you are no longer in pain, you will read back and see how unreasonable you were.

If you are seriously ill you will be in majors or resus, or awaiting movement to those areas after triage in a&e if necessary.

And even shit.

You are being ridiculous.

• How would a broken leg or arm stop you eating?
• Breathing difficulties might not
• A stroke might not it if happened not to affect your mouth and throat.

There a 1000s of things which might send you to A&E without stopping you eating!

I was told to go back to A&E if my antibiotics didn't work. I'd been bitten by a cat and they were on the brink of giving me IV antibiotics.

Of course people do abuse A&E and the NHS in general, but I don't think - certainly as a non medically-trained person - you can accurately determine at a glance who those people are.

I was going to give this as an example. My friend was sent in to rule out a detached retina. He felt perfectly fine, as did a neighbour who wouldn't go to the hospital and ended up blind in one eye.

When my friend needed a tetanus shot recently, she got it done at the local urgent treatment centre.

I think these are invaluable, ours is open from 8am-8pm and they deal with both minor injuries and illnesses that can't wait for a GP appointment. They have them in the 3 biggest towns in the trust area. It must save no end of trips to A&E, I don't know why more NHS Trusts don't have them.

Ours probably saved another friend's life. He'd had a blinding headache for 24 hours one a weekend and his wife took him up there. As soon as she mentioned that his father and sister both died of brain haemorrhages because of an aneurysm, they blue lighted to him to the nearest neuro hospital, who did a scan and operated on him almost straight away.

If he'd had to wait hours in A&E, he probably would have died before he got seen.

Would you feel better if they dined on filet mignon?

There is no MIU or anything where we live. It’s A&E out of hours or take your chances. Most of the time I wait until the next day. But my son (needless to say had done something very nasty to his privates) had to attend at 6pm: he could still eat and walk around, but had an open gaping wound that required stitches. We were waiting over 26 hours for stitches, what should we have done?

the Doritos would have been considerably better than the thing that was supposed to be an omlette in AMU tbf.

When I went into A&E with what turned out to be a serious systemic infection I didn't feel particularly unwell or look particularly unwell, it's not always obvious when people need help.

Also, the system is crap. They could have been told to go there by their doctors even though it's not strictly the best place

Oh gosh - how frightening. I hope he responds well to treatment and that the treatment if quick and appropriate. I think this is what is often done so well in the same hospitals with backed up a&es