Casualty & Outnumbered

Yesterday my son was visited by his best friend who was staying over for the night whilst his parents went to an opera. Only the best sort of person is allowed to visit chez nous. Alison had been watching the boys playing rugby and was concerned that the visitor nearly injured himself. I was working away at something elsewhere in the house on the laptop and Alison came up to see what I was doing.

A few minutes later Jenni appeared calmly saying that Tom had cut his fingers. I was summoned down to examine the injury as I am designated health care operative in the house on the basis that I don't faint at the first sight of blood (not even my own). Tom had cut his head on a stone and hadn't in fact damaged his fingers at all. I sent Alison off to ring the doctor to see if this was a casualty trip or a surgery trip.

The surgery said go to A&E. Tom was complaining about how useless he was and that he had ruined his friends stay. This was late afternoon so it only took 5 - 10 minutes to get to somewhere near the hospital that wasn't restricted parking or which charged for the privilege. We went in and underwent interrogation by the desk nurse who then told us to sit down. The waiting area had two televisions on both on different channels and one on so loud that it was difficult to hear the nurse call you in. At the time there were a couple of Asian ladies, two Asian gentlemen with head injuries who were being questioned at length by the police an elderly gentleman with two female companions, a young couple who came in after everybody with no apparently visible injuries but who seemed to go right to the head of the queue. An elderly lady with an injured arm was also waiting. A few moments later three young lads came in. Two clearly younger than the actual injured party who had blood streaming down his face. He had apparently fallen against a car.

After about 20 minutes of mindless tedium we got to the next circle of Casualty hell, the triage room. The nurse examined the wound and shined her pen torch on it and also into Tom's eyes. I asked what the current waiting time was so that I could estimate whether a dash for some food was possible. I was told about an hour. We then proceeded into the next circle of this hell the treatment waiting area with its childrens play area. This area was full most of the people who we had seen in the previous area were either already waiting or joined in fairly short order afterwards. In addition there were two Asian girls who had been to xray, a young girl with a Ted Baker bag whose mother eventually turned up. They may actually have been clones because the hairstyles were identical. A mother with her son who had clearly injured his foot who did a crossword from Closer magazine ( obviously intellectuals!!). A mother with her young daughter, a little later dad came to join the fun.

Periodically a dad came walking in with various children from the direction of the play area and also a fairly badly injured Asian youth whose entire posse appeared to have come with him. Doctors and nurses appeared from time to time but the queue never diminished for an hour. all of a sudden the queue rapidly started to go down.

Tom was eventually seen by a Greek doctor who smiled was pleasant and very helpful but for some reason didn't know how to use skin glue and so got a nurse to come and do it for him all the while smiling.

My concern is the lack of information. I haven't made a habit of going to A&E departments for some time now but I am almost certain that I remember there being an indicator of the current waiting time. Perhaps things could be improved if there was some kind of board indicating where you were in the queue or you were given a ticket so you could have an idea. Also there used to be comfy seats and now there are wooden monstrosities.

I hope that I don't ever have to visit again any time soon but the patient experience needs to be improved.