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"Appalling stay"

About: Medway Maritime Hospital

My fiancée was taken into Medway hospital by ambulance mid-day on Tuesday due to agonising stomach pains that left her unable to move. The ambulance staff were amazing, and couldn't do enough for her, but as soon as we arrived at the hospital, the quality of care vanished. After being vaguely directed across the hospital (when we should have been escorted, as we came in by ambulance, according to a nurse) we were left for ages to sit in these horrible chairs that made her pain a lot worse. The first 'doctor' to see her, and I use that term loosely, actually sat down, closed his eyes and dozed off for a couple of minutes after calling her into his office. He then proceeded to tell her that she had definitely been given morphine in the ambulance and she must have forgotten, when she absolutely had not as I was there with her. Turns out he was reading from the wrong notes, as her name had been attached to the wrong person. Good focus on crucial details right there. He decided he couldn't do anything, and sent us off to A+E. We then sat in the waiting room, overall, for around 7 hours, with most nurses refusing to even give painkillers, despite the fact her pain was getting worse. It took them four hours to decide if they could give her a bed. And to add insult to all of this, when she went for an x-ray, the nurse forgot to pass on the results to a specialist for an hour. We had to remind her. Then the second receptionist forgot to pass them on again, and we had to remind her as well. Eventually, some painkillers were given, which made her throw up for several hours, and their solution was to do nothing other than offer them again. Once she finally got a bed, the care was terrible, the nurses unfriendly and all they seemed to care about was getting her out of there as soon as possible, with no solution. it took a day of pestering to get them to actually help her, and even then, it was barely adequate. I should point out, one of the doctors and the head nurse of the ward were a total exception to this, and were absolutely lovely, they were the main reason she actually got any help at all. The care in this hospital is appalling, most of the staff we met didn't give a jot about her, and one of the doctors actually fell asleep! If anyone told me that, I'd assume they were joking. The receptionists were, for the main part, totally unfriendly and even downright rude, and we felt totally pushed around and discarded most of the time. I would not recommend this hospital to anyone, it is worth the drive to Margate just to avoid the A+E here, and overall, you'll probably be seen quicker. Thankfully, she has now recovered, mostly due to her own efforts, but we are still both disgusted by the treatment she received.

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Responses

Response from Medway Maritime Hospital 9 years ago
Medway Maritime Hospital
Submitted on 11/12/2014 at 11:35
Published on nhs.uk on 14/12/2014 at 00:01


I am sorry to hear of the experience you describe and concerned to hear some of the issues you mention. I would need more details from you to allow me to look into the case properly and establish if all the services you used were managed by Medway NHS Foundation Trust or one of our partner organisations; for example, MedOCC is run by our community partners. We can then share your feedback accordingly with the relevant teams to address the issues you raise. Please do contact me on katy.white@medway.nhs.uk to arrange a time to talk.

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