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"Poor paramedic care"

About: East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust / Emergency ambulance

(as the patient),

I have been advised by therapists and other professionals to call 999 when feeling suicidal, I had planned a suicide and was found by two people just before carrying it out, they called me an ambulance as I told them I had been advised to in the past. The paramedics that arrived were rude and very insensitive, they insinuated I was selfish and told me that the way I had planned was wrong and it wouldn’t work which I thought was disgusting, why would you tell someone who was suicidal something like that? They also said that I didn’t have OCD because my room was messy, that made me both embarrassed and upset as my OCD has been diagnosed as severe and I felt very invalidated. They also went on to explain the suicide scenes they had been to and explained how loved ones screamed, everything they were saying made me feel even more guilty and disgusting. When they asked me to explain my symptoms I said I have intense mood swings to which one of them said don’t all women? again invalidating how I felt. I received no paperwork from them, I always have received paperwork before and I thought this was mandatory. My overall experience was vile and my friends overheard the conversations and said they were completely shocked with the treatment I had received. I believe nobody should ever feel this way after reaching out and getting help for mental health as sometimes it is very hard to do, this could be very damaging to a lot of people. The paramedics seemed very uneducated in mental health and I felt I got a very poor level of care. 

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Responses

Response from East Midlands Ambulance Service 2 years ago
Submitted on 13/10/2021 at 13:13
Published on Care Opinion at 16:20


Dear Jesspa02

We are very sorry to hear about your experience with one of our ambulance crews and are very concerned by the treatment you have received from them.

So that we can investigate this issue thoroughly, and identify which staff members attended you and take appropriate actions, please could you contact us directly at the EMAS Patient Experience Team to provide the details of when and where they attended. You can contact them via telephone on 0333 012 4216 (available 10am to 2pm on weekdays) or by email at emas.pals@emas.nhs.uk.

Best wishes,

The EMAS Patient Experience Team

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