"Attempt To Discharge Without Discussion Or..."

I attended an ENT appointment at Beckenham Beacon

Eventually I was taken into a room where, as I was depositing my things on a chair, I heard a nurse in attendance say to the Doctor "no this is ::::::". Not a good start-did the doctor have my notes I wondered?

Before I could sit down I was told to collect them up again and hastened into another room with an examining bed rather than a desk.

A young doctor told me to get onto the bed, and started to look into my right ear and use the suction machine. "Nothing there" he said, but was still using suction! Suction is very uncomfortable and painful in my opinion, and is surely an unnecessary procedure, until wax has been visibly located on inspection! My right ear has never been a problem as far as wax is concerned and has never been sucked before!!!

He then proceeded to use suction on my left ear-the doctors I have seen before clean my problematic left ear by hand, because it is very painful at times ! Again he continued using the machine whilst declaring "nothing in there! " This suction in my left ear was very painful! I have a reconstructed ear drum which surely should warrant a little more care and tenderness on the part of the doctor?

My question at this point is -shouldn't the doctor have initially looked into both ears-identified that both ears were clear of wax , and not subjected me to the pain and discomfort of unnecessary suction?

I told the doctor that I was feeling very dizzy and that my ear was usually cleaned by hand. He said that the dizziness was because the suction machine was like a hoover sucking at the ear drum disturbing the fluids behind it !!! He said I should just stay on the bed until I felt less dizzy and left the room.

My question at this point is-shouldn't the doctor have been aware ,from my notes, that my ear was very painful when cleaned by suction, and shouldn't he have cleaned it by hand as the previous doctor had?Surely the least he should have done was to explain that he was not willing to clean my ear by hand, if that were the case. But of course if he had looked into my ear prior to suction, he would have seen, that in his words there was "nothing in there" !

When the dizziness had subsided a bit I sat up and was given a form by the nurse to take to reception.I read the form expecting it to say -appointment for 3 months. It said stop-at section titled discharge.The doctor had not even had the courtesy to explain to me that he was discharging me!

I asked "are you discharging me?"He said yes.I said I didn't want to be discharged, because when my ear gets problematic it's hard to get back to a specialist.He said he had no alternative.My ears were clear and his manager wouldn't allow him to rebook a follow up appointment! I would have to go to my GP if I had problems and join the waiting list all over again to see a specialist. I said its was 6 weeks for a doctors appointment, and asked what the waiting time was for the specialist at the moment. He couldn't say!