Believe me when I say this Aceman, I'm well aware of the fact that doctors do what they do because they care (For the most part), they'd have to in order to do the job, however, our local hospital is ridiculous, and I do mean ridiculous! I won't go into every gory detail, but a brief run down of the incidents in the last 12 months (Still pretty long, sorry).
60 year old man who's had two serious heart attacks and with a defribulator (Note this is not a pace maker, this is much more serious) in his chest, goes into hospital with what appears to be a minor case of flu, in DECEMBER! He's left on a guerney for 4 hours, then moved to a temp bed in A&E for an hour, then shipped off in a drafty ambulance for a 45 minute drive to another hospital, to be placed on an even more drafty geriatric ward, where he went from feeling fine and talking to everyone and happy, to needing a respirator for a collapsed lung, full blown pneumonia and hypo/hyper-(can never remember which is which)-thermia within 2 days. Their answer to him deteriorating at first, was stick him in a room on his own in case he had bird flu and open the window! They then realised he was dying when it was too late, but stuck the respirator on him and shipped him back to Doncaster Royal Infirmary again in that drafty old ambulance. 4 hours later, after stroking, losing both lungs and ending up in ICU, they told us they were pulling the plug because there was simply no hope of him recovering. The ICU doctor was awesome, the doctor on the observatory ward before the ICU was excellent, if very pushed for time, the rest, well, I can't use the words in polite company I'm sorry. He could have been given a flu jab and a pneumonia shot and sent home and he'd have likely lived! All of this was 14 days after landing in the country after moving here with Roses mum from NZ, he was a Kiwi.
5 year old boy breaks his arm on the Thursday, but doesn't really complain much, goes back to playing etc. Rides his bike to school on the Friday morning. School rings us around 2 and says they suspect he's hurt his arm, can we pick him up. We take him to A&E, where we explain we're not certain how/where he broke his arm, because he was fine until half way through the school day, he goes for an X-Ray, doctor tells us it's a clean fracture, will heal up nicely, he can go home after a sling is put on. Orthopaedic doctor in A&E however, sees something on the X-Ray (He thinks) and so we're referred to the childrens ward for Michael to be examined by a doctor, this is Standard procedure we're told, it's explained to us that if abuse is suspected, social services may get involved.
We think ok, well you won't, because he isn't, so all will be well. 4 hours later, Rose screams at a nurse because Michael hasn't eaten for over 7 hours and we're still stuck on the ward. 2 hours after this we finally get another orthopaedic doctor come along, who wants us to take him back down for X-Ray, it seems the original Orthopaedic doctor saw what he thought might be an old and unreported fracture on the X-Ray, we're completely shocked and obviously agree to take Michael back down to the X-Ray, but we're told we need to be escorted there, WTF! Oh don't worry, we just have to do this until we decide there's no case to answer, oh ok then right?
After the X-Ray it's confirmed Michaels arm will be fine and there is no old injury, we can go home. No, wait, we'd like you to stay here the night, so we can all talk about it in the morning with the other consultants, the break is rather strange and we'd like to figure out how it happened. This would be good for you, because you'll find out more about how he broke his arm, he could have a bone disease! Oh ****, right, we'll stay the night then.
2 entire days of tears, flames and riots, along with a visit from the bulldog and her companion, the wasp from social services on the ward, later, we find out that the A&E doc, didn't explain what we did, to the orthopaedic doc in A&E, before showing him the X-Ray, so the injury didn't match the explanation and the doctor leapt to conclusions etc. The reason the doc on the childrens ward told us we could go home on Friday night, was because he hadn't been told by anyone at all, why we'd been sent up there and as we found out early on the Saturday after VOLUNTARILY staying over night, the A&E doc had reported us to social services on the Friday night, there was NO WAY they could let us go home until Monday when people were back to sort it all out. On the Monday, they forgot Michael was supposed to have a full body X-Ray, so after waiting all weekend, he finally had it around 2pm in the afternoon. 2 hours after this full body X-Ray and the doctors had found out about their right royal **** up, we were told to go home, we insisted on discharge papers because of what had happened, but they couldn't produce any and told us we'd get them in the post, we never did! We were promised a full report on what happened, we never got it!
As yet we have not complained, there is FAR more to this story than is in this post, and every time we re-visit the complaint letter, we both get both angry and upset at the same time and just can't finish it. This literally nearly tore our little family apart, all because of a doctor not doing his job properly.
On the flip side, my dad has just come out of his hip operation a few hours ago and is doing well! Top notch surgeon, nursing staff etc. But he's in a Bupa hospital. Thank GOD my current job gives me Full Bupa! I will not insult the staff of the NHS in general, many of them do a sterling job, for little money or reward, we even had the ambulance driver for my father in law apologise for telling us to get out of his way, because he was scared of us suing him!!!! We seriously couldn't believe that, I mean ambulance guy tells you to get out the way, you get out the way!!! It isn't the fault of the staff, it's the fault of all the little pricks out there who want something for nothing and think they're better than everyone else. Oh and Europe!!!
/EndRant, sorry, I actually stopped myself from posting the whole thing believe it or not, just got so angry and then you read it back and you think, oh that little point needs to be made or that one doesn't make sense, etc. Probably none of it makes sense I dunno, lol
