"Concerned family"

I am posting this feedback on behalf of my 83 year old dad

We have had to call an ambulance for him numerous times over the last year because he keeps gettting chest pains, and he is taken to Medway hospital, Gillingham, where the staff in A and E have always been wonderful.

He had a triple bypass in 2006 and a stent fitted in 2007.

He has had many tests and his cardiologist said that there was something wrong with his bypass then they changed their mind, then said the stent was blocked, then wasn't sure.

He also had a CT cardiac angiogram at Guys in London a few weeks ago (which he had waited a few months for)

Also he has had a stress test and a rest test at Medway hospital in the last few weeks.

The Friday after he had all the tests we had to call an ambulance again (we do not do this lightly as he insists that he does not want to go to hospital again as nothing gets resolved but we only do it when he is really bad and cannot put up with it any more)

He was kept in for 2 nights and saw a cardiologist on both days who said that Guys had scanned the wrong side of his heart ( how can this be? we were relying on this scan to give my dad some answers) They also said that they couldn’t see the results of the stress and rest tests because it was the weekend (unbelievable)

The cardiologist was told that my dad has a follow up consultation at the Medway on 4th December and they said that it was unlikely that he would be seen any earlier because "the cardiology department is really busy"

My dad has chest pains every day, with pains in his arm and very bad headaches and only lets us call an ambulance when he can't cope with it any more. Because the tests say he hasn't had a heart attack he is sent home.

Every time he is admitted he is given more medicines, or medicines are changed, doses decreased or increased, often with severe side effects.

Why should my dad have to put up with this every day? It really isn't fair on him. I'm sure if he was 30 years younger he would be treated straight away.

All we keep asking for is someone who knows what they are talking about to tell us one way or the other what is going on with my dad’s heart and if there is anything that can be done.

We fear that he isn’t going to last until his ‘official’ appointment in December.

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