"Ward 1b- Waited around 5 hours and poor hygiene!"

I was referred by my GP and told that I was being admitted into Ward 1b. We arrived at 7pm and was asked to wait in the waiting room. I was initially seen by a couple of nurses, who took bloods and blood pressure etc and was told to again wait in the waiting room to be called in by a doctor. After waiting over 4 hours, I went twice to the nurse's station to find out if I was in the queue to see a doctor and to ask how long that I might be waiting. I was told that I was next, but there was only 1 doctor left on duty. I was told that a 4-5 hour wait was normal. They acknowledged that the long waiting times was a problem in this ward and they didn't know how long it would be before I got to see a doctor. At no point, did anyone come to explain or communicate how long that I might be waiting.

After waiting for around 5 hours, I was finally called in by a Dr and taken to a room to be examined. I was asked to sit on a bed, but declined as I noticed that bed had not been cleaned from the previous patient and was soiled and had rubbish on it. The Dr also noticed this and just removed the sheets and asked me to lie down on the uncovered bed (instead of asking for the bed to be cleaned or moving me to a different bed).

The 3 main points that I wanted to raise from this:

- I am quite shocked as to poor level of hygiene that I was exposed to on this visit and the slack response from the Doctor to this.

- The shortage of doctors on duty and the long waiting times

- The poor communication and management of expectations of waiting times