"About my treatment"

I have just returned from the hospital after having an overnight stay in the gynaecology ward at Crosshouse Hospital and frankly the standard of care I witnessed was horrific.

At first everyone was nicely nicely, I'm sure because of my complaint from my last visit but everything went downhill from there.

I was asked to come for an examination with the doctor and separated from my partner, whilst having my examination the nurse asked if I wanted to hold their hand. In fact all I wanted to do was hold my partners hand, but we weren’t asked if he wanted to come with me.

Despite me on numerous occasions stating my partners well-being was compromised no one asked him if he was ok despite his demeanour showing otherwise.

During my surgery my partner called the ward and explained that he had a morbid fear of hospitals and was struggling with the length of time that I was away from the ward, the nurse “laughed” at or with him and it wasn’t until they called him back whereupon he burst out crying on the phone with relief.

As I was being brought back from the theatre or just after entering the ward I was told that my blood pressure was in fact low and the nurse present wondered why I wasn’t in fact on a drip to raise it.

At my earliest opportunity I expressed my desire to leave the ward and return home, however it wasn’t until 9pm ish that I was informed that the surgery hadn’t been as straightforward and that I had in fact had a “largeish” bleed and that staying in overnight was a better option. When I mentioned my partners discomfort at me being in the hospital to the doctor they stated that I wasn’t to tell him the full story- in essence lie to my partner about my critical state of health.

During the night I expelled the piece of guaze that had been left in my wound, however despite me telling the night shift staff no one told the morning doctor about it being expelled and was more than likely not mentioned in my notes. From the moment I arrived back at the ward I was asking about pain relief, I was indeed given some on occasions that didn’t work but I had to wait a full 11 hours before I was given something that worked and I was relatively pain free.

After approximately 2 hours sleep I was awoken by the ward around me coming to life, I then asked the nursing staff about when I could leave to go home, the nurse stated that it would be after I had seen the doctor. I asked at what time roughly would this be, they stated they had no idea.

At approx 10am the doctor appeared on their rounds and explained what had in fact gone on with my surgery and that the “largeish” bleed was in fact a full 1litre of blood loss! However they stated that I could go home once all my medication had been sorted. So why is it my discharge letter is timed at 11am and my medication was handed to me at 14pm when the pharmacy closed at 12.30pm? My partner was waiting for over 2hours in the car park and as I was leaving a nurse stated that they had been waiting on my blood results before discharge, first I was aware of that! It looks to me like I was kept waiting for no reason whatsoever!

It seems that your processes within the department have broken down or need rewriting, you seem to feel the need to ignore the partner of the patient and expect both the patient (me) and my partner to make informed medical decisions when you withhold all the required information, seems a bit underhand and very dangerous. Not everyone is happy to be blindly led by the medical professionals without knowing all the facts!

I have also checked my medications supplied by the hospital and in there I have been prescribed Prochlorperazine 5mg to prevent nausea and vomiting, however one of the common side effects is a lowering of blood pressure..........seems a bit more dangerous when my low blood pressure was already a concern!

Now because of all these issues I no longer feel safe to attend any form of clinic etc in that building or with those staff members and I have found myself getting quite stressed at the thought of potentially returning to the ward and will most likely not report any further cysts because of this.

As a side note to my first complaint when I asked why my labels were incorrect I was made to feel that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill, however not one member of staff is aware of the circumstances of why I no longer use my previous name.