"I felt like I had been totally abandoned"

I was taken by ambulance to A&E Ninewells recently with a burst varicose vein and admitted to ward 7. I eventually fell asleep about 2am only to be wakened at 3am to be transferred to ward 11 where I slept for about another hour. After seeing vascular doctor in the morning I was told I would be taken for a scan to locate the burst vein and was told I would need foam injections into the vein. That would be done the following morning and allowed home by lunchtime and I would not be allowed home without them as I live alone and if the vein burst during the night I could bleed out.

Later that night I was in my bed sleeping when I was wakened again at approximately 11pm to say I was being moved again to ward 19. I was really annoyed as this had happened 2 nights running and I was exhausted. I asked to speak to the charge nurse and asked if we could go into an office so as not to disturb other patients who were trying to sleep but they said it could be discussed at the nurses station.

The nurse told me it was decided at 7:30 pm when the night staff came on duty that another patient was to be the one to move but they felt they needed to be in that ward more than I did as I was getting discharged the next morning. I asked why I wasn’t told about the move at 7:30 and was told they had waited to see where there was a bed available. I said they still should have told me then instead of waiting till I was asleep again. They then told me I didn’t have to move and to go back to my bed and tell other patients in the bay that someone would have to move and the junior nurse would come along and choose someone else. I refused to do this as I felt they were passing the buck and as the charge nurse it was their duty to do this.

The senior charge nurse then came on the scene and told me to finish the conversation now, which I took umbrage at. I felt they were so patronising and condescending and the conversation became quite heated. They said I wasn’t told I had to move, and that it was posed as a question (which it certainly was not). I was then told to go back to the bay and they would come along and see me.

I sat on my bed for the best part of an hour and was absolutely fuming at the way I was being treated as I felt like a parcel being passed from pillar to post. I then went back to see them and with the same patronising manner and a smile I felt was false, they told me the same as the previous nurse: that someone would be chosen to move but I felt this was totally unfair, so in the end I moved. 

I was in a side room in ward 19, an orthopaedic ward, but again I only got 2 hours' sleep that night. I sat in that room the whole day and no one could tell me what was going on. I was told because I had been boarded to that ward that they weren’t responsible for me and I said that ward 11 where I came from should still be responsible then. I felt like I had been totally abandoned.

I tried phoning ward 11 myself from my mobile to see what was going on but didn’t get an answer. I then tried phoning the vascular clinic and was told there was emergency surgery so the surgeons had been in surgery most of the day which I totally understand, but someone should have been keeping me informed.

Eventually I saw the vascular doctor about 6:30 that evening and was discharged without the injections that I had been told the day before that I couldn’t go home without.

This is the worst experience I have ever had while being in Ninewells hospital. I thought rest and sleep was a major part of the recovery process, but I had 4 hours sleep over 2 nights.

Also the way the Senior Charge Nurse handled the situation and the patronising way they spoke to me was totally unacceptable. I feel I was treated so disrespectfully. If this situation had been handled more respectfully I could have accepted the move easier. I don’t think I was treated like a human being, just another body to deal with.