"Longest wait to receive help!"

My son attended A&E at Crosshouse as his PEG tube (used for feeding) had broken. He was seen initially by a nurse who contacted the surgical on-call team to come and have a look and hopefully replace the tube.  The surgical team were busy at that time so the nurse advised my son he could go for a coffee until the team could come down. My son and I arrived back in A&E at approximately an hour and fifteen minutes later and advised to take a seat in the corridor until the team could come and see my son.

 We continued to sit in the corridor until approximately 3 hours later when my son approached the nurse again to ask what was happening. He was told that the surgical team were now scrubbed up and in theatre and we could go and have another cup of coffee as they could be some time.  My son was told to report back at A&E at in around 45 minutes which he duly did.

After waiting a further period of time, he was advised he should go up to ward 4A to be seen there. For nearly seven hours, my son sat in a small room in ward 4A with no-one looking in to see if he was ok, advising him of what was happening or indeed even asking him if he needed as much as a drink of water, far less something to eat! He was eventually seen later that night, 12 hours after his initial presentation to be told that his tube could have been fixed at A&E with a simple call to Endoscopy. The doctor proceeded to take my son back down to A&E, left him there to go and look for a replacement tube which was eventually replaced and my son was able to go home 13 hours after his initial presentation!

My son and I understand that the hospital is an extremely busy place and that a wait to be seen/treated is inevitable however 13 hours does seem excessive when the problem could have been sorted at his initial presentation had the correct person being contacted in the first instance. Also, I am quite disgusted that at no point was my son offered anything to eat or drink while he was waiting; patient care seemed to be non-existent on this occasion.