"Where is the care?"

This experience took place recently, and I was so traumatised by it that I am only now able to write about it.

My GP had referred me to the QMC for further tests because of excruciating abdominal pains, and I was to report to Ward D32.

My husband managed to find a wheelchair for me from the Reception area, and pushed me up to the ward. Then I was left for several hours sitting in pain an upright chair, having been told I could have nothing to eat or drink and no pain relief until I'd been seen by the doctor.

When I needed to have blood samples taken I was left to stagger the length of the large room, there and back, with no help offered. I saw no nurses rushed off their feet, in fact I saw very few staff at all during the hours I sat and suffered, except for a health care assistant who periodically went round doing observations.

In the evening I was called to see the doctor, again staggering unaided down the room, but while examining me they were repeatedly interrupted by phone calls about other patients. Surely a more efficient system could be used? Only when I asked did the doctor tell me that I was being kept in overnight. No-one had told me anything up to that point. Eventually I was shown to a bed, but then in the night told I was being moved - again no information about why or where to, until I asked.

It was a traumatic experience,  which led to further complications during my hospital stay.

Where is the care? Even in A&E, pain relief is offered. 

Where is the understanding for a worried patient in an unfamiliar situation needing to know what is going on?

I guess the staff are familiar with the procedures,  but the patients are certainly not. There's no point in bothering to write the names of the nurses on the board if the patients are likely to have little or no contact with them.