"Dreadful experience"

Arrived at Day Unit at 8am as requested, nil by mouth since 3am and no water since 7am. Sat and waited for my surgery until 3pm on an "all day list", a completely ridiculous concept meaning surgery can be any time upto 5.30pm after arriving at 8am, with eat/drink restrictions as above. Other patients were on an afternoon list which seems to run far more efficiently. Apparently this "all day list" system has been put in place to increase theatre time, not sure how this is so when there are still the same number of hours in the day! Smacks of bureaucratic nonsense for which customers and staff alike, suffer. Poor communication between ward and theatres means that no one has a clue when you will be taken down for surgery, as lists seem to chop and change. At pre-assessment I was asked all sorts of questions regarding my personal circumstances which were then completely ignored. I have many mental and physical health problems which were in my file but not considered when my surgery time was decided. It was particularly frustrating to see afternoon list people come in at midday and be seen to fairly quickly and made ready for surgery when I had been left waiting since 8am. It must have been fairly obvious from early on that things were running behind time, but no one was able to take responsibility to see that customers were kept informed and offered at least water to retain some level of hydration. I eventually went down to surgery feeling stressed, exhausted, dehydrated and feeling the effects of low blood sugar, not a good basis for having a procedure under general anaesthetic. As I had waited so long, I also needed to take pain medication for an additional problem, but was unable to do so because I was not allowed to drink sufficient water to swallow them. Whilst I understand the implications of this for general anaesthesia, again with some foresight if water had been made available to me earlier, due to the delays, I could have had the choice to take my medication then. Staff are lovely, and do their best under truly awful levels of stress. Hospital management need to acknowledge the problems here and act to resolve them. Although this is my local hospital, if I should be unfortunate enough to need treatment in the future I will ask to be referred elsewhere.