"My experience when I recently took a stroke"

My stroke was very minor with an atypical presentation, so I was a GP referral rather than an admission through A&E.  I ended up in ward 21 via the Medical Assessment Unit (MAU) and the Acute Medical Receiving Unit (AMRU), all the staff I dealt with were great and I could not fault them.  Everyone treated with me in a professional and reassuring manner, even when at times they were clearly rushed off their feet.  I will be eternally grateful to each and every one of these people, from the domestics cleaning with smiles - and at times a bit of banter - to the stroke consultants who attended me with compassion, and care.  The staff at every level are genuine assets, and should be regarded as such by NHS Lanarshire.

BUT: and this is a mighty big but.  My experience as a stroke patient at Monklands started with a 15 hour overnight wait in the A&E waiting area because I had attended as a GP referral (which, believe me, I will never, ever do again).

Yes, I was triaged, found to have high blood pressure - which was monitored at regular intervals throughout my long wait - had bloods taken and a heart trace done, and staff apologised and explained that I would have to wait until a bed was available.  Now, I understand the pressure on beds and accepted that in such circumstances and the current climate long waits are something of an inevitability, but to have us (there was one other person in the same situation that evening) waiting in a public waiting area with seating suitable only for temporary comfort is totally and utterly unacceptable, in my view.

The staff looked after us as best they could - we were offered tea and sandwiches between midnight and one in the morning, the both of us (the only two left in the waiting room were offered tea again around 5a.m.  and breakfast around 9 a.m. but refreshment was not the main issue.

I had come more or less straight from a day shift at work, and by midnight was exhausted, so was forced, despite resisting the urge, to lie across the three or four individual seats to try to nap while also trying to ensure that what personal belonging I had with me were secure.  Needless to say this was not easy and did nothing to aid any kind of restful sleep.

Around four in the morning, a patient who had seemingly been brought in by ambulance appeared in the waiting room with a mildly aggressive demeanour and accosted me. I calmly explained I was waiting to be seen. This patient was also verbally offensive to the half-dozen of so of us who were in the waiting room at this point, for not rushing to their assistance when they came out of the toilet and hunkered down in trouble.  This patient continued to quiz me (by this point, I had been awake for around 24 hours, and could well have done without that), and advised me what they would be doing if they had been left waiting for around 9 hours before disappearing out of the door where they waited until a nurse came to fetch them. So this incident passed without any ensuing nastiness, but were I not so sanguine, the situation could well have escalated.

I reckoned there was probably no medical cover out with normal working hours, but even when it reached 9:30 a.m., well into working hours, I found myself wondering if there was some strange protocol under which no medic could assess me unless I was physically lying in an actual bed, or perhaps they were barred form seeing any patients who were super-numery to the beds?  I would very much like an answer to this.

Surely you see that, for GP referrals facing long waits - particularly through the night - there needs to be, as a matter of priority, somewhere more secure and comfortable for such patients to wait?  Even just a side room, or Ambulatory Care, or some trolleys set up in Day Surgery - somewhere (anywhere) better that an area designed for time-limited waits with pretty much the most basic seating available.

I am a relatively young person, and I found this experience to be intolerable. The current set-up takes no account whatsoever of the psychological effects of watching basically two rounds of patients fill the waiting-room and be taken ahead of we GP referrals.

I would very much like some assurance that this disgraceful situation will be addressed  as a matter of the upmost urgency, because, I can assure you, I have no intention of letting this matter rest.