"I was in the hospital for a month, ..."

What I liked

I was in the hospital for a month, and found the food to be fine (better than expected in fact).

What could be improved

The bed side manner of a lot of nurses and 1 doctor was terrible. I was in hospital due to immense pain and paralysis of both my shoulders. I woke up at one stage to find I was on display to about half a dozen students and suddenly questioned by a doctor who had no idea why I was there. Had she asked me beforehand if I minded being on display then it would’ve been fine. Whilst unable to sleep during the night due to pain I asked for some pain killers, the nurse took half an hour to respond and a further 1 hour to return with some pain killers. I was asked for a urine sample from one of the nurses on one occasion and then told to leave it on the side at the nurses’ station, it sat there for half a day before someone took it, later a doctor asked me for a urine sample as he never received one from me. I had a nurse discover my ailment only after they had accidentally hurt me because they didn’t read my file before taking my blood pressure. This (amongst many, many other incidents) I found to be unacceptable and simply careless

On my final day I was told I by a nurse that I couldn’t leave in the morning because the doctor needed to see me first, at 7pm the doctor finally turned up and apologised for not turning up sooner but the nurse had in fact told him that I had already gone home that morning. Whilst I was waiting for my medication one of the nurses asked me to take my things and wait in the TV room because they needed my bed and when I asked for some help with my bags (bearing in mind I was in pain and my shoulders were paralysed) they said that they were too busy. What annoyed me even more is that when I got picked up an hour later, my bed was still unmade and vacant.

A little compassion and common sense from the nurses is desperately needed, I realise that they have a hectic job to do but to be treated as a number and not a person is not acceptable.

Anything else?

It has now been over 3 months since I first went into hospital and the doctor has strongly advised that I need a lot of physiotherapy in order to recover, although the physiotherapists that have been sent to me for follow up treatment are few and far between and don’t seem to understand what my condition is and also do not have much interest in helping me to recover. I was recently referred back to Lister for hydrotherapy treatment, when I rang a week after my referral to see what was happening I was told that my case was still yet to be reviewed to see if I was urgent enough yet (A WEEK LATER), they said that they would try to review it sometime next week... THANKS LISTER – I have now lost my job due to not getting rehabilitated quick enough.