"EMERGENCY ASSESSMENT UNIT"

My father went in as an emergency. We were not kept informed of developments and in the end waited six hours for resolution. In that time a highly infectious man had been put into the next bay and had to be hurriedly moved away: my father was sent to the x ray department without any notes, so waited for over an hour there without being seen, and the staff looked completely swamped by events in the ward. One man came in with a hospital crew in very severe pain and spent an hour on a trolley by the check in desk. The hospital crew stayed with him which obviously tied up the crew as well. My father came back from x ray and we had to hook him back onto his heart monitor. Sitting there for six hours gave a very well informed snap shot of the EAU department, and it was quite an eye opener. I would never want to be taken in there as a life or death patient. The staff looked dejected and without direction.