"My daughters a&e experience."

My daughter has an issue with her heart where she spontaneously goes into a very fast and abnormal rhythm (svt). This can happen at any time and sometimes returns to normal with no treatment but other times it is prolonged & requires urgent treatment.

She attended a&e in December 2014 in svt, and again 10 days later. It is normal to have an ECG with this issue to diagnose the rate & rhythm. When svt is confirmed she is moved into resus to have a drug called adenosine which resets the heart.

We were referred to the cardiologist and got an appointment 3 months later. Dr Vennie ( a really lovely and professional doctor) explained she had a referral letter from the a&e department but the ECGs were missing. She said this was a real problem because the treatment to cure the svt is ablation but the specialist area which does this needs the ecgs to determine the cause of the svt. I was told to go and ask at a&e if there were copies attached to my daughters notes but as expected they were missing, or lost. Even more annoying the ECG was lost from the December & January!

Resultantly dr vennie was unable to do anything without the ecgs so my daughters care was hugely affected by this.

If this story is not bad enough my daughter had another prolonged episode of svt in august. I was down south on training, she was with a friend at the time who kindly accompanied her to a&e. My daughter is only 16, being in svt is extremely scary, especially when alarms are going off & she is whisked into resus. I could not believe that her friend (her only comfort at that time) was not allowed to stay with her while she got a drug which causes a really scary feeling. I've been present when she has had it before. Worse than that she asked the nurse if he could hold her hand and was just laughed at. She did say maybe he didn't think she was serious but she was terrified. I could cry thinking about her being there alone so vulnerable and scared.

I will say during this I was pacing a hotel down south and the nurse looking after my daughter phoned and kept me up to date. A doctor also called with blood results which I appreciated greatly.

The staff at Ayr a& e have always been kind, professional, approachable and friendly however I think these things go wrong due to lack of staff. I feel sorry for the nurses and doctors trying their best to do a good job but its impossible with so few of them and so many patients.