"Eye problems misdiagnosed by Bolton Royal Infirmary"

My experience of Bolton Royal Infirmary has been absolutely appalling overall.

Never before in my life have I encountered such poor service. I speak for me and my partner, both our lives have been considerably affected by this hospitals poor service.

I'm still struggling to recover and had to move to Newcastle to receive any decent care. I have lost job, accommodation and several years of my life have been spent in agony - and I'm in my late 20s. I'm generally very polite and never complained about the hours of waiting, etc and nor rude under any appointment, sadly I wasn't treated likewise.

2 years ago I ended up with serious eye problems and in tremendous pain, my GP referred me to Bolton Royal Infirmary. We were introduced to the unbelievably rude receptionists, but the ophthalmologist was all right the first time. They wrote down a range of conditions it could be (blepharitis, allergies, etc) and put me on antibiotics, it didn't cure the problem.

After there I was seen by another who was beyond arrogant and incompetent, who insisted that I just had blepharitis and I objected to this as the symptoms did not match up with any of the pain and symptoms I felt. At this point I couldn't even wear glasses on one eye due to pain in the eye socket, so was forced to wear one contact lens to get by. Their response was to give me a leaflet on blepharitis told me where the door was, no further explanation than a name of a condition, no follow up just discharged with severe pain and visual symptoms.

My condition kept getting worse and I ended up in A&E several times with severe infections, etc. I had to give my job up as software developer, etc. My GP was getting frustrated with the hospital too, writing strong letters on how bad the condition was. The hospital replied by giving me a new appointment in 4-5 months time. At this point, the company I worked for stepped in and said enough, they wanted me back and decided to pay for private consultation at Manchester Hospital. Here they actually did something, a schrimers test showed I had 1-2mm tears in my eyes, where 15+ is normal, further investigating showed I had "gross" giant papillary conjunctivitis in both eyelids. They couldn't say what was causing the pain in my eye socket in one eye though. My condition at this point was so bad I couldn't work again and had to go live with my gfs parent.

It has taken 2 years on the strongest steroids to calm the GPC and inflammation in my eyes and it is not fully gone. I have developed severe reactions to any irritants, like fumes and can't go to town anymore. I now use punctual plugs and a Professor at Newcastle Eye is personally dealing with my case, trying to help me recover after Bolton's failure. Hopefully it isn't too late for me to recover.

Furthermore, the NHS choices had to reject this review on their site as the NHS complaint it was too "old", we are talking 2 years here and the review wasn't posted until 2 years in as I been suffering so severely from their mistakes that I didn't feel well enough to actually write the review.

Bottom line, I wish I had used another hospital and not Bolton Royal Infirmary.