"Long Wait on a stretcher in A&E"

My wife called for an ambulance as I had gotten home but was physically unable to get out of my work van due to injuring my back at work.

I was told there were no ambulances available and I wasn't priority so they would send a first responder. 2 hours later I was still stuck in my van and my wife had another conversation with the operator who was surprised that I was still in my van(don't think she believed I couldn't get out) and informed her that someone would be with us soon.

A friend then came who is also a lives responder in the hope he could transfer me to my car for my wife to drive me to A&E but it quickly became apparent to him there was no chance of moving me so checked on the status of the responder to be shocked that nothing was due to come to me! ! So rang and upgraded the situation to get someone to me.

When the ambulance arrived I was given gas and air and in great pain transferred to a stretcher and taken to A&E.

On arrival we were me with a queue of 4 or 5 more ambulance patients waiting to be booked in. This took over an hour to get checked in and once checked in a doctor spoke to me briefly and decided that before I was assessed I given morphine.

After I was given the morphine I was wheeled out of the cubical to make way for someone else and left next to the A&E reception desk for over 2 hours.

My wife enquired as to when I would be assessed and was told that that doctor had gone off shift. I was then moved into a cubical and had to wait for another doctor.

My wife had to again enquire was the doctor would see us as by this time it was five hours since I had the morphine and it had worn off and I was in a lot of pain again.

A doctor then came to try and assess me but realised I would need another lot of morphine before this could be done so I was given my second dose.

When the second dose had started to work the doctor tried to assess me but realised I was In too much pain so had to give me a suppository.

I was told that I needed to be able to move about before I could be released but this 2nd doctor was now also going off shift!

After about 30min of the suppository I was able to move about gingerly and my wife called for another doctor to assess me.

We could hear the nurses having ago at the doctors for not seeing to us as we had been waiting over 7 hours and they were just picking patients to see who had been there for less than 3 hours.

We arrived at A&E just before 8pm and was finally released after 10 hours in A&E and over 13hrs from the fist phone call for the whole ordeal when all was needed was a suppository to get me mobile to be able to rest!