"Gallbladder issues"

It’s now December and since March 2019 I had the diagnosis of gallstones. I got this whilst pregnant and immediately wasn’t offered much help. I understand not much can be done whilst pregnant however nobody spoke to me about how to manage it, I had to google it. Whenever I phoned triage in agony I was told to take paracetamol and that they couldn’t do anything.

Cut to after my baby was born, I suffered pain every single day. Getting an appointment with my doctor for a referral was next to impossible as they never had availability and didn’t care that I was in pain. Eventually I got one and they did an urgent referral. My doctor told me how long it should take, when it surpassed that time, I contacted the hospital to be told it had been changed from urgent to the standard waiting times. In pain every single day and apparently it wasn’t urgent. I have two young kids also, whereby my days were heavily affected. Any time I tried to get an emergency appointment with the doctor they couldn’t see me apart from once, maybe twice and I tried for appointments a lot because of how I was struggling. I even attempted to get a phone call and was denied this also. Last Friday I contacted them again for an emergency appointment and they said I’d need to call Monday and try again. (Worth mentioning that I once had to fight to have my infant seen the same day) So Sunday evening and Monday early morning I had the worst attack I’ve ever had and had to go to hospital. I was going to be sent home until a surgeon had a cancellation and kindly offered to help. Otherwise I’d have been left again. Getting the surgery and after was absolutely fine and the staff were beyond helpful. However, had the gp seen me when I needed medical care, I may not have had to go in to hospital and have surgery one week before Christmas. I am however grateful for it having been removed but it certainly wasn’t under the best circumstances.

Cut to now, my liver function is higher than normal and my surgeon wanted for me to go to my gp for further blood tests over a week from now and they said they had no availability when I called.. I explained why I needed it and they refused to make room and said they are busy right up until the new year. I’ve complained to them twice, never received a response and it’s just utterly ridiculous that patients can not get appointments yet are scolded for using accident and emergency or out of hours with a problem that could have been left to their practice. Luckily I got in touch with a consultant at the hospital who was more than helpful and has made an appointment for me to go there to have the bloods taken. The practice in question really needs looked at (orchard house medical practice, Stirling) and the protocol for gallbladder issues, waiting times etc needs revised.

Other than during my surgery and the aftercare of that, I have had bad experiences at forth valley royal, especially in maternity and it’s deeply concerning. Again, surgical staff, surgical assessment and day surgery are phenomenal though. Couldn’t really fault them at all. I was sincerely beyond grateful for that one good experience as it made it far easier for me to be away from my children in hospital and meant I felt safe and looked after.