"I was in excruciating pain and felt scared, alone,"

I was taken to St Mary's by a wonderful ambulance team who were kind and caring. I was then left in the capable hands of a doctor who treated me with respect and compassion while diagnosing my condition.

I was then unfortunately transferred from the triage room into the main care area which was chaotic. The triage doctor spoke to a woman doctor who I think was in charge. I could overhear him telling her about my condition and her reply that made it very plain that she did not want me in there. I think he must have convinced her that I had nowhere else to go because I was left on the trolley and he went back to the triage area.

While I was in this main area I was left on the trolley for hours in my summer pyjamas with just my cotton robe to cover me until a kind wardsman came in and asked if I would like a blanket. This was despite there being another wardsman sitting not 4 feet away looking on the internet for what I think was a car and two other people (maybe interns) also just sitting looking at a computer screen. It was like I was invisible despite my pleas for help.

The only other caring person in the room was a think) nurse who was absolutely run off her feet. She seemed to be the only one running around trying to do everything that she was told to do while there were others just sitting around.

When the female doctor finally came over to speak with me after I had been there for hours and after me begging this young nurse to please ask the doctor for some other pain relief as the morphine hadn't done anything to help..... her only comment to me was "have you tried to lose weight?" There was no bedside manner, no empathy and certainly no sympathy. And as I hadn't had an attack like

I was now experiencing I didn't know that this could or if it would make any difference.

I was finally given some other pain relief that helped and after a few hours I was moved into another ward.

The staff in there were lovely but sadly very understaffed. There were three people looking after the ward and the female nurse and the nursing sister were absolutely run off their feet. My sister rang to see how I was but the hospital couldn't find me in their records as they had put my name in wrongly. When I asked about changing it the male nurse suggested that it be left as it was as it wouldn't make any difference. I don't know if this was because of laziness or if it would indeed be too difficult.

While I was there I was given a scan and told by the man that did it that the doctors would want to remove my gall bladder that night as there was a 2cm polyp inside and after 1cm they can be cancerous. This information turned out to be erroneous as I was discharged the same evening even though I was still very dizzy from what I thought was a reaction to the morphine I had been given. Even though I was in for around 20 hrs I was never

offered a shower or even a face flannel. It was horrib