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Rude, apathetic and cruel

Story from nhs.uk

"Rude, apathetic and cruel"

About: Northern General Hospital

Immersive Reader

Upon being told to go to a&e immediately by 111 due to being exposed to HIV after my girlfriend was raped in the Middle East I went to the a&e department at Northern General. Upon my arrival I patiently waited my turn to be seen by the receptionist. When my turn arrived I began to explain the situation only to be told, I kid you not “hold on love, this is more important” while the receptionist had a conversation with the woman sitting next to her. I commented that an exposure to HIV is widely considered rather important, only to be told “well you’ll have to wait”, not exactly the most empathetic or understanding response from a rather apathetic receptionist. Following this, I patiently waited to be triaged for over an hour, the nurse then took my blood pressure etc while telling me I would need blood tests, that she would order them and that I would need to wait in the reception area for those to be done. Not a problem, again I patiently waited this time for just over 2 hours. I was then called into another triage area by an overweight and clearly perturbed woman who took my blood pressure before telling me to return to the reception area. Hearing this, I asked when I would be having my blood test to determine whether I had in fact contracted HIV, a very serious and very concerning condition that, if caught early, can be much, much more treatable than if left unchecked for a longer period of time. The woman then told me that I didn’t have any “stickers” therefore she could not perform the blood tests. I asked her why she could not do the blood tests and she told me that a doctor had to order them. I raised the fact that no matter what doctor I saw or when I saw them I would need to have blood tests to determine if I had HIV. The woman then abruptly retorted “well the doctor has to order them”. I reiterated my earlier, and very much obvious point that, no matter what, I would be needing blood tests so in the interests of treating my potential HIV as early as possible I should have the blood tests done, before waiting to see the doctor, to ensure that the time between contracting the virus and treating it was as short as possible, as this is a key requirement when it comes to successfully treating HIV. She simply spat the same words back at me. Upon asking her that surely she could understand my position, she apathetically and rudely repeated herself while shrugging her shoulders and sighing loudly. I asked her how long the wait would be to see the Doctor and she said verbatim “7 and half hours, other people are poorly too you know” before demanding I return to the reception waiting area. Never in my life, have I received such callous, cruel and uncaring treatment from an NHS so called professional, I was left feeling humiliated, worthless and completely crestfallen, all this while she knew I was dealing with the news that my girlfriend had been brutally raped leading to me being exposed to a whole host of STDs. Northern General should be ashamed.

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Responses

Response from Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 3 months ago
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 31/01/2025 at 16:58
Published on Care Opinion at 16:58

Immersive Reader

Thank you for taking the time to share feedback about your recent experience of care in our Emergency Department. We are really sorry to hear about your difficult experience and appreciate that you will have been very anxious and stressed at this time.

We are very sorry to read that you felt that you were treated with a lack of compassion when attending the department to seek urgent care to respond to your exposure to HIV. We have shared your feedback with the Emergency Department team and they are sorry that you do not feel that the information about getting bloods taken was delivered in a caring way, as the same information was repeated to you, making you feel like you were not being listened to. However, we would like to reassure you that the treatment for potential exposure to HIV does not rely on bloods results. HIV takes a number of weeks to show up on a blood test, and so treatment decision is based on treatment guidelines that assess the risk and include seeking advice from the virology team. Therefore, starting a patient on PEP (post exposure prophylaxis) is determined based on these factors, none of which are influenced by blood testing. Having bloods taken during your Emergency Department attendance would not have had any bearing on the time taken to provide HIV treatment to you. Nevertheless, we are very sorry that this was not made clear to you in a compassionate way while you were being triaged. We recognise how distressed you will have been at this time and are sorry for any further distress caused at this time.

We have been experiencing very busy services in our A&E department recently, which does lead to operational pressures and some long waits to be seen and treated. Due to the nature of an Emergency Department, service delivery will be variable due to capacity, demand and clinical acuity, and we have recently been experiencing very high patient numbers to see- sometimes although the waiting room may appear less busy, there are high numbers of patients in other areas within ED being seen and treated. The sickest patients will always be triaged to be seen first. We endeavour to keep all patients up to date with projected waiting times and offer alternative options to be seen through our streaming and triage services if we feel a more appropriate option is available for timely patient review. While PEP should be started as soon as possible following exposure, we have to triage based on clinical urgency, with the sickest patients in immediate life-threatening condition being seen first.

The normal route for receiving support post-HIV exposure is via the sexual health clinic, and 111 should only be directing patients to A&E in cases which are out of hours. We will feedback to 111 about this, to ensure the most appropriate and efficient pathway is recommended to patients in this situation in future.

If you would like us to investigate this matter and provide you with more information specific to your area, please contact our PALS team on 0114 271 2400 or by emailing sth.pals@nhs.net. The PALS team will ask you to share some personal details in order for us to investigate this matter for you.

You might be interested to know that as of October 2024, the Northern General Hospital A&E is one of a select number of Emergency Departments offering screening for several blood borne viruses including HIV which will allow earlier diagnosis and treatment, a really exciting service development.

Once again, please accept our apologies for any additional distress caused while you attended the department to seek treatment, we are sorry that you felt that staff did not care. We hope that you and your girlfriend have both received any care and support that you require and would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the best with any ongoing care or treatment.