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Care received

Posted By Coles 2019

"Care received"

About: Altnagelvin Area Hospital / Emergency department Altnagelvin Area Hospital / Radiology Altnagelvin Area Hospital / Trauma & Orthopaedics

(as the patient),

I sat in A&E for seven hours before being seen. I was taken into minors which staff and drs where very nice and helpful. I was to be admitted to the orthopaedic  ward which never happened. I was given strong pain relief and diazepam. I was transferred over to majors at 8.05am. I asked for pain relief at 9.30 am and at 11.45 am a nurse came with meds by this this time I was crying with pain. Shortly after pain relief was given I was taken for a MRI scan. I was taken back to majors I was in terrible pain so asked for pain relief which I got. Then at 5 pm orthopaedic Dr came in and told me my scan impingement had not changed from last year and they were happy for me to go home. I explained to the doctor that I would go home if I was given strong pain relief as I could not weight bear on my right leg with terrible pain. The reply was that as I was in A& E and they could give me pain relief home. He give me two suppositories. I then over heard a staff member being told to get me out of the room as it was needed. I heard the nurse explain that I was in awful pain, but a few minutes later the nurse asked me to leave the room which I did in terrible pain to sit on a wheelchair.

I came into A&E in terrible pain and could not walk and I left in terrible pain. As a community nurse myself I found the whole experience a terrible ordeal if I was treated like this what hope does other patients have. My pain was excluded and no one seemed to be listening to me.  

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Responses

Response from Vi Gray, Professional Nursing Support , PCOP, Western Health & Social Care Trust 2 years ago
Vi Gray
Professional Nursing Support , PCOP,
Western Health & Social Care Trust

encourage people to share their experiences of health and social care, what matters to you, what you particularly liked or disliked so that we can share with the relevant department, and staff .

Submitted on 10/08/2021 at 15:26
Published on Care Opinion at 15:26

picture of Vi Gray

Hello Coles 2019

I am so sorry that you had this experience but thank you for taking the opportunity to post your feedback. I hope that your pain has subsided. Your feedback has been shared with the Departmental Manager who will discuss this in detail with staff and you will receive a response from her in due course.

Best wishes

Vi Gray

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Response from Colleen Hamilton, Service Manager for Unscheduled Care, Emergency Department / AMU /ACU Altnagelvin Hospital, WHSCT 2 years ago
Colleen Hamilton
Service Manager for Unscheduled Care, Emergency Department / AMU /ACU Altnagelvin Hospital,
WHSCT

management duties

Submitted on 18/08/2021 at 18:07
Published on Care Opinion on 19/08/2021 at 11:18

picture of Colleen Hamilton

Hi Coles2019

My name is Colleen Hamilton. I am the department manager of Altnagelvin ED. I am sorry to hear about your negative experience in ED recently. Thank you for acknowledging the good care provided to you during your time in minors. I will pass on this to the minors team.

During the recent few months we have experienced a significant increase in the attendances to the emergency department and as a result the bed availability in the hospital has been challenging. This has resulted in more patients spending increased hours in the accident and emergency department than we would like. We work together with the patient flow team to transfer patients to ward beds as soon as they become available, but sometimes this can be delayed while we wait for patient discharges or transfers from the wards. I can understand your frustration regarding this but please be assured that if a bed had of been available you would have been transferred to your allocated ward.

I apologise for the delay in the provision of analgesia that morning. This falls below the standard of care we expect from our team and we are currently working on medicines management with our nursing team. We actively promote safe and effective provision of medicines in a timely manner.

During your time in ED, although you remained in the department for a significant period of time, your plan of care had been provided by the orthopaedic team. Once your MRI was completed and the result noted they made the decision to discharge you home. I am sorry that the attitude of the staff was not more compassionate to your situation and that the decision to discharge you should have been better explained. The choices of pain relief should have been explained better to you, and for this I apologise. I will take this forward regarding communication with patients upon discharge and I will actively try to improve our discharge processes.

Once again due to the ongoing pressures within the department we often face long delays with moving patients from ambulances to cubicles. Once a patient is discharged we will try to create this space as soon as possible to allow for another patient to be given a cubicle. Again I apologise for the lack of compassion show to you upon your discharge and I will discuss this with our senior nursing team.

I hope that this has addressed a few of your concerns and I do hope that you are feeling much better. We do try our best to work together as a team and your feedback is welcomed to help develop and improve our service going forward.

Kind regards

Colleen Hamilton

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