"20 hours at Morriston"

I was told to attend A&E at Morriston in late August 2020 after a conversation with 111 due to suspected kidney stones. 

Firstly, I’d like to point out that I’m a student nurse about to go into my third year so I understand how busy A&E is along with the rest of the hospital but I don’t see how this can mean infection control measures aren’t met and also communication was very minimal. Although I work in England, I have many friends who work within the NHS in Wales and I asked them for some advice regarding infection control. 

The triage process was incredibly quick but when my obs were being taken the nurse and HCA both looked at each other and hid the machine from me and didn’t state what was wrong. The HCA just asked the nurse -ecg and bloods?” and didn’t tell me why this was being done. The HCA also didn’t wear any gloves whilst taking my bloods: 

I have a urine sample but I only found out the results of this by reading my X-ray form when I was sent to get one done. I was then asked to sit in the minors waiting area where I sat for many hours. I did attempt to ask for pain relief which never came. My name was then called round in the main waiting area but by the time I got there they had called someone else. 

I knocked on the nurses station door to be told by a doctor that she couldn’t find my ‘card’ and said she’d get someone to look into it but told me to go and wait back in the main waiting area.

After a couple hours a doctor called me in and he was very lovely and got me pain relief before starting the examination. He told me he was going to refer me to the surgical team and asked me to go and wait back in the waiting area. 

About 8am on the next day, I was called in by an agency nurse who didn’t introduce himself and just told me to follow him to a different ward which was the SDMU. 

I was greeted by a lovely nurse called Lorna (I think that was her name). She triaged me and then sat me in a chair to wait for a doctors to come and see me. I was waiting for around 4-5 hours before a doctor came but the urology reg, sho and f1 had a public disagreement in the middle of the waiting area which I believe should have been done in private. 

I would like to say a huge thank you to the F1 doctor (I’m so sorry I can’t remember your name, but you examined me alongside the urology reg) who was working on the morning of that day in SDMU as you put me at ease so much and was the only person to fully explain things through to me and when I was visibly upset, he was the only person that made an effort to comfort me. 

3 people attempted to take my blood with no result, but I know that is no fault of theirs, I’m just really tricky to take blood from. 

I sat again for about half an hour before walking out as I decided I’d rather wait until I was back in my normal trust to seek those repeat blood tests as I didn’t feel like I was respected and listened to properly here. 

Many staff weren’t wearing masks or were taking them off repeatedly whilst with patients, but I don’t know fully if your infection control measures are similar to those we use with PHE, but if they are the same, I don’t think a single member of staff followed the full PPE guidance.