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"My questions were disregarded"

About: Ophthalmology / Eye Casuality and Orthopics

(as the patient),

I attended Eye Casualty in the Royal Victoria Hospital on an emergency appointment from my optician who had concerns of degrading vision in my left eye as my vision has gotten very blurry over the past two months in one eye. 

I was first told to bring someone with me as my eyes would be dilated and I wouldn’t be able to drive - my partner was then told on arrival she couldn’t wait with me - we were fine with that but then multiple other couples came in after that which was a little odd. After I was seen by a lovely nurse she gave me eye drops which made my vision very blurry and then asked me to go for a scan and gave me a map which I couldn’t read as my eyes were completely blurry - I couldn’t even read the signs as I couldn’t see them and my partner was out in the car so couldn’t help me. I eventually found the correct ward and got a variety of tests - all the staff in both Eye Casualty and where I got my tests were very nice up until this point. 

I then was seen by who I believed to be a doctor who asked me a bunch of questions about my issues and then proceeded to do some tests on my eyes along with a colleague who I believe was a student. They then left the room for about 20 minutes until I heard them talking to another member of staff in the room across from me - I heard this member of staff asking the people who had seen me, why I was even in Eye Casualty and something to the effect of “them asking who referred me there  - obviously making me feel very dismissed and worried that I wasn’t being taken seriously.

They continued to talk for another bit before this member of staff entered the room, didn’t introduce themselves at all and just said they wanted to look at my eyes. After looking at my eyes for no more than about 20/30 seconds they said nothing wrong even though the previous staff member was talking about ‘pigmentations’ in my eyes and other things which weren’t explained to me further. I asked then why is my vision getting significantly worse in one eye with no corrective lenses able to solve the problem to which they more or less told me they don't know  and that maybe my optician just hasn’t ‘got it right’ yet - bearing in mind I have been to three opticians before this referral.

every question I asked was disregarded and I was told again nothing wrong before they walked out of the room.

I then asked their colleague what I was meant to do about my eye sight as I am under 30, can hardly see out of my left eye and I am getting severe headaches when wearing my glasses because my eyes are obviously not right. They also said they didn’t know what was wrong but did reassure me that they were not disregarding it and wanted me to come back in 6 weeks to see if it got any worse but said sometimes these problems need to get worse and develop before they can see anything. 

I just totally felt that the other member of staff completely disregarded every concern I had and was basically telling me I shouldn’t have been there which was completely deflating as I’ve been worried about this appointment for weeks and was basically told that I was imagining it. 

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Responses

Response from Natalie Wilson, Assistant Service Manager, Ophthalmology, BHSCT 2 months ago
Natalie Wilson
Assistant Service Manager, Ophthalmology,
BHSCT
Submitted on 01/03/2024 at 11:54
Published on Care Opinion at 11:55


Dear MrMc

I am very sorry to read about your experience in our Eye Casualty Department and understand how concerned you are regarding your eye problems. This is not the standard of care we expect for our patients.

I would like to investigate your experience further if you could forward your name and contact telephone number to the confidential email address below:

patientexperience@belfasttrust.hscni.net

I will be in touch in due course and we can address the issues you have raised.

Natalie Wilson

Assistant Ophthalmology Service Manager

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Update posted by MrMc (the patient)

I have emailed the above email and am awaiting a response

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