"4 year wait for endoscopy"

In May 2013, my wife eventually had her gall bladder removed. She was told that a subsequent endoscopy would be necessary to ensure her bile duct was clear of stones. She accepted this, despite having had an endoscopy at Heartlands previously that had failed and had left her in severe pain plus a further week in hospital. However, the one became three endoscopies and she still now requires a fourth! At an appointment in January 2016 with the doctor involved, he admitted that he had “failed” my wife. He could only say that new equipment was soon being installed and he promised an appointment for the fourth endoscopy “as soon as it was up and running”.

Unfortunately, the failures continued throughout 2016. An appointment came for the end of February. Just to be sure, my wife rang to check that it was with the new equipment, and found that this was not the case. The doctor obviously had not communicated with the Appointment staff. Without making that call, she would have arrived for the appointment and would have made a wasted journey.

However, another appointment was received for the end of April. She again rang and it was confirmed to be with the new equipment with the usual sedation during the procedure. On the late afternoon of the day before, this appointment was cancelled as the equipment was not, as promised, “up and running”! Why was the appointment sent out a month before when it was obviously then known that the equipment was not ready? The person who telephoned promised to ring with a new date. Needless to say, that call never materialised, and for six months it seemed that the endoscopy department had forgotten about my wife.

Out of the blue, an appointment for the end of November was received a month before the due date. About an hour before she was due to set out for the endoscopy, a telephone call was received cancelling the appointment. The reason given was that she was on the “wrong” list, since patients on that day would have sedation with their endoscopy and she required general anaesthetic.

At no time has anyone contacted my wife to apologise about any of these three cancelled appointments, neither has any medical person taken the bother to contact my wife and discuss with her why the endoscopy has suddenly been changed to having general anaesthetic rather than sedation. Clearly, if she had had the cancelled April procedure with the new equipment it would have been with sedation. Why the change? To add insult to injury, when the new appointment date of February 2017 was received, the patient information sheets sent were identical to the ones received for the November cancelled appointment, giving only details of sedation!

What should have been cleared up by the end of 2013 is still ongoing four years later in 2017. This fourth endoscopy waiting time will be 13 months, unless there is another cancellation! If these appointments had been cancelled due to emergencies, no complaint would have been made, but all three were postponed due to total lack of communication from both administrative and medical staff, in relation to each other and to my wife whom they have all miserably failed.