"Poor surgery experience at Lincoln Hospital."

I was shocked and disappointed with my entire experience.

After fasting, I arrived at 6:45am for my operation (extraction of two tricky wisdom teeth). I was one of the first to arrive. At 4pm, I was the last one in the waiting room. The reception team had all left and the lights were dimmed. I sat and cried from hunger and exhaustion and discomfort after an entire day sat waiting and waiting with that awful nervous feeling. The evening cleaner found me and was confused - they immediately went to find someone.

There was then a mad rush and it became quickly apparent that I'd somehow been missed or forgotten... I was rushed through immediately and told that if I didn't go into forward waiting now my appointment would be cancelled.

The surgeon I had seen in the day had gone home. The forward waiting staff sat and complained about their jobs openly and joked to me about how much they hated them and how they were going to try and get off early as I sat there crying. They laughed about how they'd been told off because they’d forgotten to call through patients today because they'd been too busy chatting, while I cried knowing that I was one.

I was called through and told that a team of trainees would now be working on me with a supervising surgeon. One of the trainees messed up my canula and after repeatedly pumping at the same vein (and being told by the supervisor he had hit my valve and needed to stop) he eventually went to the other hand. I was so upset and overwhelmed at this point that the gas was just placed on my face and I passed out without any of the expected counting down from 10 etc:

When I awoke, there was a nurse with me. They immediately started shouting across my body (as I slowly came round) at another member of staff demanding someone come and 'take this patient' because they were due to finish in 20 minutes and they didn’t want to be out late. And I mean shouting. Angrily.

Another nurse took over and I then listened while everyone else complained about the staff member who had shouted. I spent over two hours in that ward because there were 'no beds available' in the next one. When I was eventually taken through, there were many, many empty beds. I was put in one bay and told I'd get a yoghurt and a drink. I waited 25 minutes for that yoghurt and drink (painfully aware that my last meal was now over 24 hours ago). It was then time for the shift change and the night staff said they didn't want me in that bay as they wanted to close down this section to minimise how much they were overseeing, so I was moved again. I was desperate to go home by this point, but the staff seemed too busy cleaning and closing down that ward to attend to me. I didn't leave until 9:45pm - 15 hours after I'd arrived...

I have always sympathised with the NHS and been under the impression it was buckling under the pressure of cuts and staffing issues. But on this visit, I was met with a well-staffed department full of employees dithering and gossiping in corners over cuppas rather than doing their jobs. I mean, I can tell you all about the Christmas party and who is going and who isn't. Did you know they are selling their ticket? And the lack of bedside manner from the staff was absolutely startling. I dread to think how this would leave more vulnerable patients like the young, old or disabled feeling...

I am young, healthy and of a good mental disposition, but I left my first experience of surgery feeling nothing short of traumatised and downright disappointed. I can't help but feel now, that the struggling NHS rhetoric has possibly been taken and used as an excuse in some instances to be lazy and to quite simply just not care...