"Missed Treatment"

I have been attending the Oncology Day Unit (ODU) at Hairmyres Hospital since September 2005 and have been getting my current treatment every 3rd week since February 2006. There has never been an issue with this. The staff in ODU are fantastic.

Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I feel that I have to complain about recent events.

SInce the pharmacy provision was closed at Hairmyres Hospital and moved to Monklands Hospital, my treatment has been subject to delays and no-shows.

Things first started to go wrong when my treatment was delayed in getting to ODU. I have to get my treatment as early as possible as I get insomnia on treatment day. At first it was arriving around 10.30am which was manageable. However, this started to get later and later. I had treatment at around 12pm on 1 visit but this caused me to be still awake by 4am.

At the next appointment in December it was going to be well into the afternoon so it was agreed that I could come back later in the week at 9am. This was fine so it was agreed with ODU and Pharmacy that I would have my treatment day moved from Monday to a Tuesday, permanently. However, due to further changes in the service provision my treatment has not been available because it had not been prescribed. I believe the breast care nurses are now doing this. However, I have had no dealings with this team since around 2008. Is that why I am being missed? In February I called ahead and was assured that my prescription had been done and my appointment went as expected. I therefore, thought that the original teething problems had been addressed. That is not the case!

I attended recently to be told that my treatment was not there as no prescription had been done. The staff were lovely in dealing with this but I am really not happy. I attended today instead but this has a knock-on effect as I have organised my life around when I know I have my appointments. I can't keep doing this!

I feel very angry and I feel it is adding stress to an already stressful situation. The current system is not longer robust, which is made worse by it being very robust before. I should not have to worry and chase up my prescription which takes the ODU staff away from their work. Why am I being forgotten?