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"Diabetic avoid this place"

About: Heartlands Hospital

I live in Birmingham and I want to tell you what happened to me at Heartlands Hospital yesterday. On Sat I got a swelling in my gum which went larger on Sunday and got an emergency appointment on Monday for the Doctor an got antibiotics. Later that day after a sleep I awoke with my face swollen in my mouth and outside that much it distorted my face and the pain was amazing, it said in the antibiotics leaflet that if your face swells seek immediate help so went to Emergency at Heartlands Hospital. I am a Type1 diabetic and had not ate for two days because of this and was using glucose tabs to keep my blood sugars up. After an hour or so waiting my blood sugars dropped and I was having a hypo, I felt dizzy and lay on the floor trying to get my glucose tabs out my pocket. I was approached by a security guard who says "get up." I said I cant I'm a diabetic and I'm having a hypo I need this glucose tab to kick in, well he kept going on and on for me to stand up and then he walked a way. A policeman approached and says get up you can't lie there an I repeated I was a diabetic and having a hypo just give me a few minutes'; you need to move as you are blocking the way, at this time the security guard came back with a chair ( they were wanting me up off the floor and to stand as there were no chairs) anyway they forced me up and after 10 mins in the chair I came back to normal, I stood up and went over to the policeman who would not look at me and I said " I know what happened there you heard me talk and because i had a Scottish accent you decided I was drunk when I was having a medical emergency." He said well you could not have been that bad because you are alright now. That's the first time that has happened to me in England but I am under no illusion because I am Scottish i was treated like dirt. I usually attend the Diabetic clinic at Heartlands but i won't be back.

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Responses

Response from Margaret Mitchell, Deputy head for patient services, Heart Of England NHS Foundation Trust 9 years ago
Margaret Mitchell
Deputy head for patient services,
Heart Of England NHS Foundation Trust
Submitted on 03/09/2014 at 14:40
Published on Care Opinion at 22:45


Dear Joe, I was really saddened by your comments and your experience, I would be more than happy to look into this further for you if you could contact myself or Iona Belgrove at Patient Services on 0121 424 0808

Kind regards

Margaret Mitchell

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