"Awful and incompetent care"

This is the worst hospital I have ever visited and unfortunately it is my closest one. My partner has a condition where her joints dislocate easily and it is extremely painful. She suffered a hip dislocation which went back in, but she could barely move around and it was a struggle just to get her to the toilet. Because of the way she was having to get herself up it was causing her other joints to weaken (her other shoulder had already dislocated 6 weeks prior) and her knees were extremely painful (which is worrying as they have dislocated previously).

We got to A&E and explained her condition and that it was extremely painful just to sit so asked if there was a bed. She was told if she can’t sit then she has to stand. 3 and a half hours later she had an x-ray and we were told the hip had gone back in (which we already knew) but we needed her to stay in so she could at least rest and go to the toilet without further dislocations occurring due to the added pressure on her other joints.

We were then ignored for another 3 and a half hours by doctors until I went and found someone (I also had to find someone to change an elderly lady’s bed pan as she had been calling out for 10 minutes with no one coming to her). We were then moved to a ward and told either she could go home or spend the night in a reclining chair in a room filled with men, before being discharged without any treatment at all 7 hours later.

The doctors were treating her dislocation in complete isolation and not considering her condition at all. They failed to understand even the basic concept that her joints dislocate easily and that her trying to even get to the toilet at home in this condition could cause something further to pop out. Lo and behold a couple of days later her shoulder suffered a partial dislocation while she was trying to get up to go to the toilet (even while being assisted). Now she’s in even more pain and has an even harder time getting around which could have been easily avoided by her having care in hospital for a couple of days to allow her joints to rest. It is now only a matter of time until we can’t even get her to the toilet.