"If you take care of carers, carers will take care of your patients"

I am writing this in the hope it opens the eyes of staff and they find it constructive. My husband entered A&E via his GP, suffering appendicitis. He was seen in triage by a nurse who gave him paracetamol, I was not spoken to. It was a busy night and it would be 3 1/2 hours later that he was seen by a doctor after my husband was taken to a cubicle. I was not invited through but came anyway. The doctor asked the usual questions, he asked if my husband lived alone. I was sitting beside him.

30 minutes after prescribing analgesia, my husband received it. The nurses in A&E were very busy, but did speak to me and I felt they cared. They were due to give him more paracetamol because he had a temperature but whisked him off to X-Ray before he could get it. I asked the technician if she could ask for the paracetamol when she was chasing up the request, which she did, and came back to tell me that she was told he had already had it. This concerned me.

We went from there to the ward and I was asked to wait outside. By this time time I had been in the hospital for 6 hours, I had had nothing to eat or drink and my head was thumping, I was anxious and worried about my husband. Despite being outside I could hear the handover between A&E and Station 3 staff. I believed they said he had received his paracetamol, at this point I interjected with the fact. The staff looked horrified at me. They continued. I sat back outside embarrassed and upset.

When invited into the ward I was quickly asked to leave again as a surgeon arrived. They did not introduce himself and asked for 5 minutes. I assumed they were going to examine him or do something that may compromise his dignity otherwise why ask me to leave? No, the surgeon spoke to my husband about the plan and then left without speaking again to me.

At this point I am feeling sick with my headache and worry. The nurse arrives and her first words to me are that she's expecting me to be heading home. No "hello, my name is....." here. I said "No, I don't know the plan" to which she snipped me off saying  that he'll get antibiotics and a CT scan and that nothing else will happen tonight.

I said, "Ok then, he hasn't had paracetamol..." at which point the nurse talked over the top of me to say, that since half four, they know.

The tears of frustration stung. She proceeded to then start observations, denying me a dignified goodbye. The first time in my 20 year relationship that I did not kiss my husband goodnight. I drove home in tears of anger that she denied me that and worry that if anything happened to him I had left in anger.

After I left the nurse questioned my husband, asking if I was a nurse?  To which he replied that I was not but I had worked in the Ayr hospital a few years back. Her response? That she'd worked there a good number of year and had never seen me. Station 3s care of my husband was good their care of me was not.

On transition to Station 2, the nurses were so diffferent. Approachable, kind, informative and reassuring. Staff were all fabulous. I became visible and valued. I was able to reassure my husband when he was not sure what was happening. I commend Station 2 staff for their support of me.

The main point in all this is, I am a wife, the mother of my husbands children, a partner. And yet despite my husband wanting me to be with him I was excluded and made to feel a nuisance. If you take care of carers, carers will take care of your patients. Include them and treat them with respect.