"Treatment following a fall"

I recently fell on glass and sustained a laceration to my left wrist.  My daughter took me to A&E at Hairmyers hospital in East Kilbride after a while I was seen by a nurse who said it was partial thickness, put a bandage on and sent me back out to the waiting room at A&E.

10 hours after my accident, I had still not been seen by anyone else - apparently short staffed and emergencies had came in. A short while later I was taken through to a cubicle by a nurse and when I asked how long it would take for me to be seen they said anything up to 5 hrs. At that point I was angry and explained that I had been sitting all night and that I would be going home and whatever happened I would be holding them liable.  The nurse then went to speak with senior staff and a doctor agreed to come in and see me within 20 minutes, which they did.

Unfortunately because the dressing had been on my wrist for so long the doctor had a real problem soaking the dressing off. When eventually the dressing was off the doctor explained that it would be difficult to stitch due to the wound opening up and the subcutaneous tissue that had squeezed out of the wound.  When the doctor was washing the wound I was screaming as I could feel the nerve being touched and it was causing a feeling like red hot pokers running up my hand and fingers.

I told the doctor that I had no feeling in parts of my hand and they said that it would come back. Doctor than said I had to go for an x-ray to see if any glass was embedded in the wound. Fortunately there wasn't and we started the gruelling task of stitching the wound, it was horrendous. Although local anaesthetic was used I could feel the needle at times puncturing my skin and because the wound was so open with the tissue squeezing out, the doctor had to use a different type of stitch to try and close it over. 

I finally left the hospital early the next morning, having been told to contact GP to have stiches removed in approximately 10 days.

Roll on 10 days and I attended my GP to have my stiches removed. 2 nurses were present and again had to almost rip the dressing off as it had stuck (apparently the correct dressing hadn't been put on at hospital which would have saved it from sticking). I could still feel the nerve when the nurse was cleaning the wound,  the nurse who was supposed to take the stiches out couldn't as they took a whitey looking at the wound so the other nurse took them out - again a horrendous experience. 

The wound wasn't fully healed (I now question why every 2nd stich wasn't removed rather than them all, common practice in removing stitches) so steri strip was applied and again asked to return in approx 5 days to have them removed.  The nurse had said that it would take a while for sensation to come back in my hand and fingers.

5 days later the nurse, a different one removed steri strip apart from one as they said they didn't want to pull it, that it would fall off itself and that I didn't need to go back. When I saw the wound I could not believe the mess that had been made of my wrist. I spent the next 4 weeks dressing my hand daily until it had finally healed.

Time went on I attended a private physio for my hand due to limited movement and lack of sensation, however they were reluctant to do a lot of work on it as they feel wound should have been scanned to assess level of ligament/nerve damage and they recommended I see GP.

I attended GP and they suggested referral to hand clinic, due to my total lack of confidence in NHS I am in the process of going private

During all this time I have struggled with washing & dressing, doing my hair, driving etc etc and I have had to cancel my upcoming holiday. Fortunately my place of work has supported me through this.

My concerns are;

- the length of time I had to wait to have my wrist seen by a doctor resulting in the wound opening up and subcutaneous tissue pushing out, making the whole process of stitching difficult resulting in an appalling scar.  

- My wrist is a disgrace due to what I feel was negligence

- no follow up

- still having to wear a padded dressing over wound due to median nerve situated just under the skin which when touched even slightly causes pain

- no feeling in my left thumb, index finger, middle finger, half of ring finger and part of my palm

- continued limited movement