"very tiring, very discouraging"

I had visited my local G.P. about the dizzy spells I was recently experiencing and she carried out an ECG and had then asked me to take the result and her accompanying letter straight to the A&E unit at Antrim. I arrived about 9.00pm, booked in at the reception desk (by a very sullen and unfriendly young receptionist) and was told to take a seat in the waiting area. Within about 5 mins. I was called into the Triage to have my blood pressure, oxygen levels etc, taken, so all looked good. Then I was sent back to waiting area where I then sat for the next 9 hours! Only broken up by 2X times having bloods taken and 1X time to be offered tea and toast,

At about 6am I was called in by a doctor, sat in a cubicle, asked a few precursory questions as to why I had come in and then told to wait (where I waited for over an hour before the same doctor returned and led me to another waiting area where I waited for another15-20 mins before being called and led back to the same cubicle that I had been waiting in for the previous hour). I was told to wait there again for a nurse who would come and take my blood pressure whilst sitting and then standing up. Needless to say no nurse arrived, but after a further 20mins I was asked to return to the waiting area as they needed the cubicle for another patient, After some time a nurse called me from the waiting area into the corridor to do the blood pressure tests and I was the told that I would then be going to the CCU to have my heart monitored and also have an echo test. 

By this time I had been in A&E for about 11-12 hours.(with very little happening apart from 3 lots of bloods taken, 4x blood pressure readings taken and plenty of movement from waiting room to cubicle to waiting area to cubicle to waiting area to corridor) very tiring, very discouraging and very little or no assurance that anything was going to happen. 

Then I was taken to the C.C. Unit and a whole new meaning came to Health Care. From the moment I was wheeled into the unit I was met with smiling friendly faces, who immediately put me at my ease. I was in the C.C. Unit for a similar amount of time (8-9hours) where the staff, led by the senior nurse Ahnoo (not sure if I have spelt his name right) were continuously attendant on me and the other patients in that unit. We were people that mattered and had feelings not just a name on an A&E list that had to be shuffled from pillar to post(waiting areas to cubicles) during the staff’s respective shifts. I cannot commend the staff in that C.C. Unit that day enough, they were excellent.

I am well aware that life can be hectic in a hospital environment, for the staff, but they chose that profession, (I know I couldn’t do it) but they should remember that most of the people coming through the A&E doors didn't do it because they wanted to, they did it because they felt unwell, had had an accident or were sent in by their local G.P. Most would be nervous, worried or just very frightened. Well that’s my rant over.

Regards,