"Saturday appointment carry on"

No signs / Bad attitude by the nurse

I was attending a Saturday appointment at Outpatients. When I arrived at the hospital, I found the shutters were down and the main outpatients closed. There was no signs to direct patients to any other entrance to the outpatients clinic. I am disabled and I started to become very anxious because I did not know where to go. Up to 4 members of the public assisted me and we finally found a staff member who was outside. They directed me to another entrance to the outpatients.

Once inside the building, I needed to figure out where to go, as the specifics of the clinic address / base, were omitted from the appointments letter. As a consequence of no signs to the alternative outpatients entrance and not knowing where the clinic was based, I was approximately half an hour late for their appointment.

The surly nurse at the clinic displayed bad manners; she was sitting at a desk in another room with the door opened. The nurse did not bother to get up and she talked to me from her room (I was standing at reception). Only when another patient enquired 'Who is speaking?' did the nurse bother to get up and come to the reception. The nurse was not friendly at all and told me the doctor had gone to lunch and that I would just have to wait to see if the doctor will still be able to see me, when they return. I enquired what time the doctor went for lunch (to assess whether there was any point in waiting, as my friend would be coming soon to the hospital, to help me back home). The nurse started shouting at me; that it had nothing to do with me what time the doctor went for lunch. I asked the nurse not to raise her voice at me, as I had not raised my voice at her, and that ll I had done was asked a simple question (for which the nurse could have just politely responded by saying you are not privy to that information, etc). When will staff be trained not to disrespect patients like this?

Once the doctor arrived, I was called in. The doctor explained he had gone for lunch and enquired whether the information on the letter had included the address of this specific clinic. It was clear that the shouting nurse had complained about me. She was now sitting quietly in attendance, acting innocent (but why was she sitting there as I was not being examined?).