"Problems with taxi"

As you are asking for opinions in hospital services, I feel I must write rather than make complaints. First of all I must say that my treatment and stay in ward 18 of Barnsley D.G.H was absolutely first class and I have no complaints at all about this. Being discharged, however, was a very different story. I went straight from ward 18 to dialysis. After asking the ward 18 doctor if I could go home straight from there (which usually involves a routine medicar service). , she said she would like too see me before I went home and I should return to the ward and sit in the waiting room. Fair enough, this I did, when I finished dialysis at 3.00pm. The doctor came to see me in the waiting room and listened to my heart beat, asked me if I felt ok and left to prescribe my drugs and write a letter of discharge.

Then the wait began. When the time got to 4.40pm, I reminded the nurse at the nurse station that I had no means of transport, and that ambulance liaison closed at 5.00pm. She told me not to worry as there were “after hours” services. This was accepted and I settled down again. I started to worry again when it got to 6.30pm. Having got my drugs I asked a passing nurse again about my transport. She was amazed to hear that I wasn’t waiting for a bed (like the other five people in there) and that I was waiting to go home.

At around 6.50pm I was told a taxi was waiting for me at the main entrance and I was promptly taken there in a wheelchair and left at the front entrance (because the said taxi was not there and never came). After 30minutes sat there I asked the front receptionist to contact ward 18 and ask them about the taxi. She told me if they didn’t ask the driver to come in, they wouldn’t. Another taxi was ordered and promptly arrived. What a blessing I had in the presence of mind to ask the driver if the taxi had been ordered on account. It wasn’t! He had to take me back to the hospital foyer! The receptionist again contacted ward 18 and I was taken back tot eh ward to sort it out. When I got there, a staff nurse suddenly appeared and said, “Taxi in half an hour, and it is on account!” 20 minutes later a taxi driver who was known to me (having taken me home numerous times from dialysis) turned up. Eventually the story had a happy ending but my grievance is that from 3.00pm, it was finally 9.30pm when I arrived home (bearing in mind, I had already done three and a half hours on dialysis, which makes you feel tired anyway). The other people waiting for beds were all complaining that they had been waiting for hours. One man complained bitterly that he had been waiting for 7 hours in the same place and was intending on putting in an official complaint. Having being treated well earlier, I did not want to do this, but I wish someone to take note of my experience.