"Careless in providing care"

Arrived to A&E in an ambulance and that was when everything took a turn for the worse. I waited for 6 hours to finally be seen by a doctor! Whilst waiting, doctors would call out names of patients who were no longer there (who most probably left because of waiting for so long) and then the doctors would disappear for a very long time (about 30 minutes to an hour) until they called the next patient.

Once I finally saw a doctor, I was examined very quickly to only be told that I might have an infection. The only test that was performed was a urine test and no other tests where done to check if I could have an infection elsewhere in the body. Even then, when the doctor was supposed to be seeing me, the doctor disappeared for about 30mins, in which I couldn’t give a sample to. So after being tired of waiting, I handed my sample to someone else who said they can do the test while I waited for the doctor. Whilst waiting for the doctor, I could just see other doctors strolling around the place and having small chats with one another. There was no sense of urgency from doctors to see patients as quickly as possible, considering it was the A&E!

Even though the results came back as a negative for an infection, I was still just given antibiotics straight away instead of other tests being performed to see if I actually have an infection elsewhere. By then I was so tired and had been in the hospital for about 8 hours, I just agreed to take the antibiotics so I could leave. Then, when it came to being told about how much antibiotics I must take, the nurse said something different to what they wrote on the box. Then I realised that I did not have enough antibiotic tablets for a full course. So I had to return to the nurse to double check how much I was supposed to take and where I can get the remaining tablets. I was then finally told that what they had written was correct and that I must get the rest of the prescription when visiting my GP. It was absolutely ridiculous as to how the nurse was so slack in what they were doing and slack in properly informing me of what I need to do next. The same nurse had also told me the wrong opening time of the hospital’s pharmacy. Imagine, during all of this waiting and going back and forth to get clarity on things, I was in pain.

I’ve later found out from my GP that the doctor did not pass on any information to my GP (even though I was told that would happen) and I was actually supposed to take the antibiotics longer than what the doctor and nurse told me. I definitely experienced carelessness and lack of urgency to provide care and lack of communication from staff. Furthermore, there is a serious problem in functional cooperation in A&E. This was such a terrible A&E experience I’ve encounter and it really makes me question if I would ever want to go to A&E again, or at least to the A&E at North Middlesex University Hospital.