"Told that I could not even be seen by a consultant for 7+ months unless it was a matter of life or death!"

I suffered a sudden bowel and bladder prolapse, resulting in these organs pushing out. My doctor said I would need an urgent operation and contacted Ninewells immediatly. However when I received the letter from the hospital, it said 20 weeks to be seen. I immediatly phoned Ninewells to say there must be some mistake, but no I was told that in fact I could have to wait up to 7+ months just for a consultant to even look at my referal letter.

Good news: however, I saw a consultant in three days and had my operation just over a week later and am now on the road to a full recovery.

Bad news: I had to pay several thousand pounds from my retirement savings to go private. I think this situation is a disgrace and the reply to an earlier patient in this section, that a lot more referals are being made is ridiculous, I would have thought that there are highly paid people in the NHS planning department who could have forseen the higher demand coming and done something about it!