"No beds available at QMC"

I had a faint after a fall and my husband, having recently had a triple bypass operation, was unable to lift me and so sent for the paramedics. After some tests, they advised me to go to hospital for a check-up.

I arrived at the Queen's Medical Centre at 6pm and was still on a trolley with a lot of other people until 9am the next day when I was taken to a ward. But when I got there, there were still no beds and so had to sit on a chair until I went for tests at 10am. After the tests, I was told that I could go home after I collected my medication, which arrived at 12pm. I was lucky enough to have someone fetch me from the hospital, otherwise I'd dare say that I'd have waited another few hours for an ambulance to take me home.

It would be unfair to say that the doctors and nurses didn't do their best for me under difficult circumstances, but 15 hours on a trolley for a person with severe arthritis was unacceptable.