"Perfect example of overstretched nhs"

Despite my ordeal beginning at 4.30am and ending close to 4pm, not once was I offered the opportunity to lie down and rest. The benches are so uncomfortable that it feels almost as if they're designed to keep you awake. I was placed on an IV and rather than being allowed to lie down on a bed, I was left on the IV in the waiting area. Despite being confirmed as flu positive, I was still left in the oceanfront busy waiting area rather than placed anywhere more isolated. Wasn't offered anything to eat at any point, had to ask for it. Wasn't offered tissues so repeatedly had to roll myself and the IV to the toilet to use toilet roll. Was then left on an empty IV for almost 30 minutes and had to get up again to ask someone to remove it, as they'd told me I'd now been discharged. They removed the IV... and left the cannula. Another ten minute wait, wondering if they're come back, when one of the staff suggested I just walk into the minors ward and ask someone there to take it out for me, which I did.

I was in the A&E itself for just under 9 hours, and all none of those hours were uncomfortable and miserable. I cannot overstate how much of a difference a bed or even a comfortable chair would have made me feel. The one nice chair I found near xray, I was sat in for less than two minutes before I was sent back to the hellchairs of the waiting room.

I have so much time for our nhs workers, but this experience was so horrible that I can't sugar-coat it and try to say otherwise. It felt almost like I was being punished for being there. There were two other people there for just as long as me, one who was clearly in pain from being in these seats, and rather than being moved to somewhere more comfortable he was instead just offered pain killers over and over. Poor guy.