"A Trip to A&E"

I am lucky in the fact that I am a usually fit and healthy person. Over christmas while visiting family in Liconshire, I was unlucky enough like many other people to catch the dreaded Gastro/Noro/Winter vomiting bug.

4 days into 9 days of illness and pain, I attended an emergency GP appointment as the pain was awful and I had blood in my stools.

I was sent home and consequently later that day I deteriorated further and was advised over the phone to get to Lincoln Hospital, why I couldn't attend the nearest, Grantham, I do not know. I ended up having paramedics called and being taken via ambulance.

The Ambulance staff were wonderful, we all know that Gastro is as undignified as it can get and they treated me with as much dignity as possible, even though I had to use the dreaded bed pan. I thank them immensely.

When I arrived at A&E after the wait in the ambulance outside which we all heard about over the xmas period, I was taken into a sideroom, understandable as a I was presenting with D&V. This is when my experience of care, dignity and respect went completely down the pan. In said side room I was greeted by a nurse, I don't know their name, or title.

Then left alone and a short while later I was then hooked up onto a drip, blood tests taken, etc. by another nameless nurse.

After this I was left quite a long while which is understandable, before seeing anyone else. The next person I saw was my sister who had followed the ambulance, about 30 minutes after.

In that time I was on my drip, attached to the bed so unable to move, I had no bed pan, no sick bowl and the call button, my only means of help was attached to the wall behind my bed.

Unbelievably, and I don't enjoy saying this I didn't have any toilet or vomiting accidents in the time but on reflection the fact that this could have happened feels horrible.

I was already undignified in the fact that I am doubled over in pain, alone, dehydrated and in a place where I don't know anyone. The simple things that should have happened, and that mean so much, didn't.

I am an articulate professional who works in Patient Experience within a hospital and this left me completely powerless.

What about if it had been an old lady or gent with Dementia who didn't have a member of family arrive shortly after them, or a voice loud enough to shout?

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