"Walk in Eye Dept"

The system is that arrivals go to the desk and receive a number. When the number is called, you go to register. Then a nurse calls your name and you are triaged. Then the Opthalmologist calls your name to be seen. Because this information was not explained, people were arriving and saying ‘What’s going on?’Surely eye problems are stressful enough without added confusion. When I arrived, the waiting time duration was marked on the board as 1-2 hours. After 2 hours, this information changed to 3 – 4 hours. If you went outside to go to the toilet or to get a drink, you would lose your place in the queue. The room was very hot and there was no fresh air. I am menopausal and needed to go outside several times. To sit in a stuffy hospital waiting room with 100 other people is not conducive to preventing the spread of infection. There was no hand wash that worked. Opening the doors incurs no cost to the NHS and is just common sense but too much to expect from Whipps Cross "University" Hospital! The comments box was sealed up so it was not possible to leave a request for simple actions that would take 2 minutes to solve. These 4 hours I spent here were a complete waste of precious NHS resources because the eye doctor just repeated tests that had been conducted the previous week by my optician but did not have my opticians modern equipment. He was rude and arrogant, he kept saying 'that's alright' when it wasn't and said I had beter eyesight than he had. I was not there to compare my eye sight to his!