"Outpatients department"

Anything else?

I attended this outpatients department 4 or 5 years ago as a patient when haematology outpatients were moved out of the main hospital buildings. I attended again recently in November with my sister who was attending the breast surgery clinic and I was appalled to see it's facilities are much the same poor quality or worse. It is a very old building and in a dilapidated state of repair and decoration (paint is peeling off the walls). Patients are crammed into a tiny waiting area and space is extremely limited. In contrast in the main hospital the extreme opposite is apparent - wide open spaces and corridors (larger than the whole of the outpatient department) with lots of wasted space. My sister and I had to sit with our knees in the chairs in front of us waiting to see the consultant. We were shown into a small consulting room to see the wrong consultant initially and my sister, who was waiting to hear the result of a biopsy which she knew was suspected to be cancerous was kept waiting twice for what seemed an interminable period of time. It made an extremely distressing situation much worse. I find it unbelievable that better facilities could not be found for outpatients to be seen in. It is like visiting a third world country.