"Uncomfortable Wait"

Anything else?

I was in considerable pain and distress following severer chest and arm pains. I was treated as if it was cardiac trauma which was fine. I received excellent care and tests, no complaint there and as far as I am aware all good clinical practices were carried out to diagnose the problem. Administration may need looking at as I was asked the same questions 5 times. My only complaint is that as I had to have a blood test, which I assume was to show elevated levels of Troponins, Creatine Kinase etc, to establish any neuromuscular damage/disorder, which as you know takes 12 hours. So for 12 hours I was stuck in a room 10 foot by 10 sitting in a chair with sometimes up to 9 people all who are receiving treatment, having cannulae removed and having blood tests and being asked personal questions. There were also people awaiting x-rays in this tiny room, which was a bit embarrassing as there was a very large braless lady, barely being covered by her gown sitting next to my husband. This room is adjacent to CDU and casualty so we could not get out to stretch our legs and people waiting were concerned about DVT. Also there was no proper toilets, I was told to use the male shower room. There were also no coffee machines or food machines. We were offered a sandwich but as I have a glutton allergy, I had to go without food from 13 hours. The room had no TV and one old newspaper, I would really suggest someone from the NHS sit for 13 hours looking at a blank wall and see the affect it has on you while you are in severe discomfort. I do appreciate that there is massive redevelopment work and that this may be a temporary situation, but please do an interim set up as I felt sorry for staff being confronted by angry patients. My husband had to talk to one very angry man to calm him down as he was being quite abusive to staff. This is not a complaint or a moaning session, just really trying to give you an insight into a ‘customer’ experience to see if there is some way this situation can be improved. Let me just repeat the staff were excellent and the hospital looked very clean, so well done for that.