"5 &3 hour wait for nothing"

I suffer heart disease in need of triple heart bypass; on Wednesday 10th of June 2009 I went to Hull royal A&E with severe chest pains. After approx 45 minutes of being there I was eventually moved to a cubical and placed next to a drunk who had a very bad head wound, this drunk was waving is arms around ,threatening everyone and swearing at the top of his voice. I was splattered with his blood on my arm and face. During this time a nurse took down all my necessary information on a form, then after thirty minutes waiting with this drunken lunatic by my side I was moved to an enclosed cubicle. in this cubicle I was wheeled on the trolley and placed with my head not more than six inches away from a open bottle of urine from a previous occupant, during the next half hour or so a cleaning lady came into the cubicle to empty the flip top bin and my wife asked her to remove the urine specimen to which the cleaning lady answered, “nothing to do with me love, I don't want to know”.

After a wait of another hour and a half the nurse turn up with another form (exactly the same form as previous). I told her I had already done one of these forms and she apologised saying the earlier ones had gone “walkabout”. So we filled in a second form. After that we were left for another two and three quarter hours, without ever seeing a nurse or doctor so my wife found a nurse and asked how much longer will we have to wait. The nurse replied, you are being admitted and have to wait for a bed, but there are none. My wife told her we were not even told I was being admitted.

After that time we had enough and went home, scared witless but even more disgusted. The following day (still getting chest pains) we informed our doctor as to what had happened. He immediately wrote a letter for us to take along to the acute assessment unit (Hull royal), saying we should be seen as soon as possible. After three hours waiting in a wheelchair in the corridor (a nurse actually took my blood sample in the corridor) whilst cleaners are flapping their mops and brushes around me, my wife asked a nurse how long before we see a doctor, to which she very off handedly said "oh at least another 2 to 3 hours. To which we promptly went home and I went to bed for 4 days solid, bed rest. To be totally honest, I will in future take my life into my own hands and do my best to care for myself should this situation arise again. I would not choose to put myself into the care of this hospital, as I feel the treated me in an incompetent way. I also made a report of this to PALS, for what good it did.