"Arrogant, rude and completely incompetent"

Date: 4/2/2013

Do not use this hospital if you cherish your health or life. Absolutely appalling overall.

Never before in my life have I encounter such poor service. I speak for both and my partner who's life have been considerably affected by this hospitals poor service. I'm still struggling to recover and had to move to Newcastle to receive any decent care. I have lost job, accommodation and several years of my life which has been spent in agony - and I'm only 29. I'm generally very polite and never complained about the hours of waiting, etc and nor rude under any appointment, sadly I wasn't treated likewise.

2 and half year ago I ended up with serious eye problems and in tremendous pain, my GP referred me to the hospital. We were introduced to the unbelievably rude receptionists, but the ophthalmologist was alright the first time. They wrote down a range of condition it could be (blepharitis, allergies, etc) and put me on antibiotics, it didn't cure the problem. After there I was seen by another who was beyond arrogant and incompetent, who insisted that I just had blepharitis and i objected to this as the symptoms did not match up with any of the pain and symptoms I felt. At this point I couldn't even wear glasses on one eye due to pain in the eye socket, so was forced to wear one contact lens to get by. Their response was to give me a leaflet on blepharitis told me where the door was, no further explanation than a name of a condition, no follow up just discharged with severe pain and visual symptoms.

My condition kept getting worse and I ended up in A&E several times with severe infections, etc. I had give my job up as software developer, etc. My GP was getting frustrated with the hospital too, writing strong letters on how bad the condition was.. The hospital replied by giving me a new appointment in 4-5 months time.. At this point the company I worked for stepped in and said enough, they wanted me back and decided to pay for private consultation at Manchester Hospital. Here they actually did something, a schrimers test showed I had 1-2mm tears in my eyes, where 15+ is normal, further investigating showed I had "gross" giant papillary conjunctivitis in both eyelids. They couldn't say what was causing the pain the eye socket in one eye though. My condition at this point was so bad I couldn't work again and had to go live with my GF parent. It has taken 2 years on the strongest steroids to calm the GPC and inflammation in my eyes and it is not fully gone. I have developed severe reactions to any irritants, like fumes and can't go to town anymore. I now use punctual plugs and a Professor at Newcastle Eye is personally dealing with my case, trying to make me recover from Bolton's failure. Hopefully it isn't too late for me to recover. I will be filing a lawsuit and go to the media. This hospital should not be allowed to take patients.