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No doctor, no pain relief

Posted By David6672

"No doctor, no pain relief"

About: South West Acute Hospital / Emergency Care and Medicine Services South West Acute Hospital / GP out of hours / Urgent Care

(as the patient),

Rang Out of Hours for advice on what to do about hurting my back - I have current back problems, I fell and couldn’t move and was advised to go to an Out of Hours doctors appointment organised for me.

I attended and was seen at my appointment right away. I was then transferred to A&E as they thought I might have spinal cord damage, and they couldn’t provide me with the medication I needed.

I was seen by triage and they were good to me, but after that was appalling!!! I was left for seven hours with no doctor, no pain relief, asking for it five times!

I think it's absolutely appalling, to never be looked at again, and just handed pain killers. At one point I was the only person in the waiting room, can someone explain to my why I was waiting seven hours for that?!

An absolute joke, in my view. SWAH Enniskillen should be ashamed of themselves. 

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Responses

Response from John Kerr, Emergency Nurse Practitioner SWAH ED, Acute Services Emergency Care, WHSCT 4 months ago
John Kerr
Emergency Nurse Practitioner SWAH ED, Acute Services Emergency Care,
WHSCT

assess and treat

Submitted on 23/12/2023 at 09:42
Published on Care Opinion at 09:42

Dear David6672

thank you for using this facility to express your opinion about the service you received, while visiting our department. It is disappointing to read that your experience was not what what we would expect as a department.

I am pleased to read that your experience with our triage nurse was positive and that they were good to you. Thank you.

It is unacceptable that you had no pain relief prescribed, and for that I would like to apologise. It is not clear, however, who you asked, as not all members of staff are medically trained.

In relation to you being the only person in the waiting room and your wait. I shall try and explain. The ED has a number of patient streams, patient attending on foot are just one of these. We will have a stream of ambulance cases, plus a number of cubicle patients, in the main department, also waiting to be assessed.. Out of hours the number of staff is reduced and so we, as a department, have to prioritise medical need and work within the resources available to us. This can cause unavoidable delays unfortunately. The numbers in the waiting room, is a poor indicator of how busy or otherwise the department is and should not be used to reflect on the waiting times. An electronic screen is regularly updated to keep patients informed of the current waiting time.

Finally I hope this finds you well, and has answered some of your concerns.

regards

John Kerr

Emergency Nurse Practitioner

SWAH ED

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Response from General Manager western urgent care, Western Urgent Care, Western Health & Social Care Trust 2 months ago
Western Health & Social Care Trust

Submitted on 12/03/2024 at 13:27
Published on Care Opinion at 13:28

Dear David6672

Thank you for taking the time to explain about your recent experience with the urgent Out of Hours GP service. We were pleased to hear that your experience of the service was a positive one and we were able to quickly triage and arrange for you to be seen.

We hope that your health has improved and you have now returned to better health.

Kind Regards

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