"Son's recent ENT visit"

My son has continuing ear problems since birth and is special needs.

First of all I would like to say how well we have previously been treated under the previous consultant who is now retired and who always treated my son and us with the respect we all deserve. They are already sorely missed.

My son was born prematurely at 32 weeks and is now 23. He has extremely narrow ear canals and over the years since his birth has had numerous visits both to ENT, doctor and walk in centres with numerous infections.

The previous consultant said they did not want his ears done at our local surgery. When they are bad he doesnt even want to leave the house, and this is usually on a daily basis.

It totally affects his and our daily lives as you can imagine. There is no way he could undertake any sort of job whilst he is suffering with this terrible condition.

We fortunately managed to get an emergency appointment after several phonecalls.

We saw a consultant who microsuctioned his ears and I asked if we could be put on a consultant list rather than being left on a patient list.

The doctor used to see him every 6 weeks to 2 months for this treatment.

If left any longer the same problems of dull ear, wax and continuing ear pain came back.

Unfortunately the consultant decided to downgrade him and put him in with a nurse who only performs microsuction and nothing else.

They told me they were an experienced nurse but I have since learned that if there are any more serious problems they would have to get a doctor to look.

More than likely this would be an SpR who would definitely not have the experience of a consultant. They told me the consultants were busy doing other things, and this was theirreasoning for down-grading us!

A week later we had to visit the doctor yet again and they gave him

ABs just in case, but told us only to take them if neccessary!

Yesterday we had to pay yet another visit to the doc as he was still suffering with blocked ears and pain as well as a headache.

They looked in his ear and said it had debris and wax in it.

My complaint is that the consultant concerned did not do a thorough job like the previous consultant always did.

At the meeting it felt like they didnt want to know as he was special needs and so they downgraded him. This is not respectful at all and left us feeling very frustrated and upset.

We had also been dropped of a thyroid consultant list recently in the same manner and we now have a second opinion coming through for that, but we shouldnt have to ask for one. The doc has now had to send yet another letter to ENT to try and get him back on a consultant's list.

Bearing in mind there is a 16 week wait at least for this, we are not amused and far from happy. This lack of treatment affects us as a family on a daily basis and it cant continue. Having done some research on this we feel it could be a problem with his eustacian tube but this has never been investigated.

I really hope we can get an appointment soon. Jane