"Traumatic Experience "

Waited four hrs for an ambulance from 4 p.m. till 8 p.m. after I had snapped my back however when they came they were superb. Very caring and gave me a morphine injection and gas and air.

However arriving at A &E it went downhill rapidly.

I was handed to a nurse who was abrupt and too busy to care for me. After five hours waiting in A &E on a trolley I finally broke down in tears and a doctor came when I said I could not take anymore. The morphine had worn off and I was feeling faint and sick with the pain. The doctor said he had to try and figure out what to do with me. He sent me for an X Ray then around four or five in the morning transferred me to a ward. They did not tell me where I was going or why. I kept asking but my nurse was cold and abrupt, did not want to communicate with me.

The screaming and noise in A &E was scarey, police were there and drunks were throwing up most of the night.

I was exhausted by 5 am when they settled me in a ward.

I was given one codeine tablet and got a couple of hrs sleep. The next day one doctor said it did not look like a fracture the second one said it was a definite break in the vertebrae.

I left in agony with no pain relief, no instructions on what to do. I had to walk out of the ward through the hospital across car parks in agony.

I’m home now in severe pain and calling my doctors for help.

I was not allowed to eat for 20hrs and with the lack of any rest and sleep I’m weak and exhausted. It was a horrible traumatic experience.

My suggestions :

1 Train the nurses to be caring and have empathy.

2 Take notes. I had to explain from scratch about ten times!

3 Move people out of A&E more quickly. It’s scarey and exhausting.

4 Explain where people are going and why when moving them.

5 Have proper pain relief available. It was agony. I could not even get paracetamol without waiting two hours for it.

6 Allow people time and quiet to SLEEP! I got home exhausted from lack of sleep.

7 Have a separate ward for night time admissions rather than waking everyone up every hour!

8 Have wheel chairs available for people going home to get them to transport.