"Disgraceful"

Having been bed-bound, I had been picked up by the transport service and wheeled into the chest clinic, where I was transferred to a waiting room seat. There were no wheelchairs available there, so I was forced to shuffle along in excruciating pain to another waiting area, then further along (after tests) to an interview room. I requested a wheelchair, only to be told that there weren't any.

The nurse that I had requested it from asked another, who told her that their wheelchairs that the department had had gone missing and that she wasn't going to ask for replacements. She gave the impression that everything was too much for her to deal with and it was infra dig for her to bother with such trivial matters.

It was demeaning and degrading to be forced to shuffle along in absolute agony. When I said that I just couldn't make it to walk any further to have a blood sample taken, one nurse took pity and went off to get a wheelchair from the other hospital entrance, spending a pound to get one.

It is ridiculous that a hospital cannot arrange for a wheelchair to be provided for non-ambulatory outpatients when it was clear from the transport arrangements that they needed one. I am seriously considering reporting the hospital for breaching it's legal obligations, under the Equalities Act, for breaching its responsibilities.