A week ago I had a fall while away for a weekend celebrating a good friends birthday. I was quite shocked & it was painful, but I was enjoying myself - Wine numbs pain. To cut a long story short, a finger went quite black & was very swollen. It didn't occur to me to take my rings off, so by the time I realised it was quite bad it was too late & the rings constricted the blood flow. Not wanting to spoil the weekend for myself or anyone else I didn't go to hospital, being reasonably confident that it could wait. I was fortunate enough to be spending the weekend with a whole crowd of people including 4 doctors. There was a lot of sympathy & black humour about what would happen if the tip of the finger went black too. Gangrene was mentioned!
I drove home from the Peak District - no problem.
I had been advised to go to A&E to get the rings cut off, so I set off as soon as I got back in the early afternoon on Sunday. Lovely daughter took me there in case I couldn't drive back. Fortunately I told her not to wait. There was a sign saying the wait time was 2 hours, but in fact it took over 4. I was quite happy, I read my book. In that time I was triaged, saw a doctor, had the rings cut off - (not easy & quite painful), had an X ray - (the radiographer was great & showed me the pictures), saw the doc again, had the finger splinted & arm in a sling & was given an appointment for the HAPI clinic on Tuesday - (Hand & Plastic Injury).
That was a misnomer. There was no indication of the wait time. Seemingly OK people came in & were seen before some of us who had been waiting quite a while. (One can understand if emergencies come in & take priority). Eventually, desperate for a drink & something to to read, (War & Peace?) - bear in mind I thought I had an appointment, I asked if I had time to go to the shop. No problem. My asking the question sparked off unrest amongst the other patients who thought they had appointments too - Times were compared.
Eventually I was called & taken to a curtained bay where I was left again, only this time I couldn't see anyone else or what was going on. A doctor came & told me what the problem was, a torn ligament had pulled off a splinter of bone. 6 weeks to heal, raise hand above heart & keep exercising so the ligament doesn't heal too short. I can cope with that. She went away & a while later a nurse came & put on a new splint.
All in all well over 6 hours of my life. I think the NHS is probably at it's best dealing with emergencies. I wasn't an emergency. But I do think that they still haven't learned the lesson about keeping the patient informed. Good communication is important. We do tend to think that an appointment is an appointment. If I'm on time, I don't expect to have to wait for hours to be seen. I have a life & I had a meeting I needed to be at. So I wasn't HAPI.
No comments:
Post a Comment