Julia's health scare

[Deleted member 21102]

I wasn`t demanding anything. The A and E doctor asked me why I hadn`t been seen by my GP and I told him I`d had 2 phone consultations, one with the practise nurse and one with a GP and both had misdiagnosed and I`d been refused a face to face appointment. The A and E doc meant for me to ring my GP but not be satisfied with yet another misdiagnosis and explain I had been seen in A and E and had been told that I needed to be referred to a Consultant and why. The GP still refused to see me to examine me and check what A and E had said was correct and simply said yes ok I`ll refer you. To this day I still haven`t been seen by my GP.
I am not a demanding person, I am never rude to anybody even though the surgeon`s secretary was rude to me and yes I do understand the stress and strains the NHS are under. My trip to A and E was a last resort for reasons I won`t go into, too personal and I waited a long long time to be seen by a very stressed A and E doctor who had many patients waiting to see him and many of those who could have been seen by a GP with children with ear infections, people with chest infections and other ailments but it was the height of the pandemic and people were literally queuing to be seen by a handful of A and E staff. The doctor I saw treated me with respect, examined me and knew straight away what the problem was and only surgery would correct it at that stage. As I said in my original post, if I`d been seen face to face much earlier then the issue could have been resolved with minor instead of major surgery, would have saved the NHS a lot of money but as it stands I`ll be paying for it anyway.
I must also say if anybody seems to be rude and have an attitude it seems to be you !

No, you have totally misunderstood my post and reacted far too aggressively as a result of that.

I'll try to make my point clearer. That A&E doctor told you to tell your GP that you needed a referral and should demand it of your GP. As patients, neither you, I, nor the man next door has any right to demand anything, and the A&E doctor should know that. Why could he not have himself referred you? That was my point, but you don't seem to have taken it that way and instead over-reacted, and at some length.

I am neither rude nor aggressive and object to your last sentence which is a direct personal attack. Moderator?

 

[Vienna]

No, you have totally misunderstood my post and reacted far too aggressively as a result of that.

I'll try to make my point clearer. That A&E doctor told you to tell your GP that you needed a referral and should demand it of your GP. As patients, neither you, I, nor the man next door has any right to demand anything, and the A&E doctor should know that. Why could he not have himself referred you? That was my point, but you don't seem to have taken it that way and instead over-reacted, and at some length.

I am neither rude nor aggressive and object to your last sentence which is a direct personal attack. Moderator?

I think vice versa is the truth but we shall have to agree to disagree on that.

 

[Sazza]

@crystal your post very much came across as you accusing Vienna of demanding a referral so it is perfectly understandable why she responded to you the way she did.

 

[Deleted member 21102]

But in the spirit of the forum, personal attacks on members are unacceptable. And I stand by my words. Or are you also saying I am rude and aggressive and in which case, please show me some evidence in any of my posts. Vienna's accusation is a personal attack and completely unacceptable.

 

[Ballerina]

Julia Roberts is away from the Q, & will be absent for several weeks, following an operation to remove a growth from her pituitary gland. It's a macro adenoma & was discovered when she had a scan to investigate why her sight had deteriorated after her cataract operation; it was sizeable & pressing on her optic nerves. The operation was a success & she feels better than she thought she would. I wish her a full recovery.

I send her sincere wishes for a full and speedy recovery also x

 

[Totally Loopy Lou]

No, you have totally misunderstood my post and reacted far too aggressively as a result of that.

I'll try to make my point clearer. That A&E doctor told you to tell your GP that you needed a referral and should demand it of your GP. As patients, neither you, I, nor the man next door has any right to demand anything, and the A&E doctor should know that. Why could he not have himself referred you? That was my point, but you don't seem to have taken it that way and instead over-reacted, and at some length.

I am neither rude nor aggressive and object to your last sentence which is a direct personal attack. Moderator?

I read your post and I don’t think it was worded as clearly as it might have been, but I did still understand the point you were trying to make, and that you were not intending to offend the poster or accuse her of being demanding...

(And I agree with you insofar as the emergency medic would’ve been well placed to make a referral on patient’s behalf, esp since he disagreed (rightly!) with the lack of care thus far, and that is how things are meant to work...

I think you meant it was odd of him to suggest a patient phone a GP and *tell* them to do something (ie. it was the doctor who was suggesting someone demand treatment)?

Equally, when you’ve experienced a lack of treatment or progress etc and in pain etc, it’s beyond frustrating and we’re at the end of our tethers (been there often, especially as being housebound makes “one” effectively invisible ), we do have to advocate for ourselves (and that’s not being “demandIng”!)

In any case I don’t think you need to delete your account?
Come back when you’ve cooled down!

Sure neither of you intended to be get personal or offend?!

(Sorry I will bow out with my lame attempts at mediation! )

 

[SusieSue]

I think many of the problems with the National Health Service are because it has become The National Lifestyle Service.

The NHS has to put right botched plastic surgery that has been done on the cheap abroad, care for the idiots that get so intoxicated on a night out they need an ambulance to take them to hospital (I'd leave them laying on the pavement) and the same for those that have taken drugs.

I have no problem with those who identify with being a man, woman, goat or whatever, I have a big problem with the NHS paying for the transition.

Not ever having a child I empathise with other people who can't have a child but not enough that I think the NHS should pay for fertility treatment or IVF.

There is a man living on the same street as my sister who has never worked a day in his life, he had a leg amputated below the knee because of issues caused by heavy smoking, his surgery and recovery must have cost a fair whack...he's still smoking.

A few weeks ago I went to my local Boots to pick up a prescription for a neighbour, I went just after they opened because in by innocent mind I thought I would beat the queues.

I was shocked that there were about thirty people ahead of me queuing for their daily dose of Methedone (sp?) which they have to open and drink in front of the pharmacist.

The service was originally there to help the sick and the injured, now it is a bloated organisation that is used and abused usually by those that pay little or nothing into the organisation.

 

[MrMarple]

I think many of the problems with the National Health Service are because it has become The National Lifestyle Service.

The NHS has to put right botched plastic surgery that has been done on the cheap abroad, care for the idiots that get so intoxicated on a night out they need an ambulance to take them to hospital (I'd leave them laying on the pavement) and the same for those that have taken drugs.

I have no problem with those who identify with being a man, woman, goat or whatever, I have a big problem with the NHS paying for the transition.

Not ever having a child I empathise with other people who can't have a child but not enough that I think the NHS should pay for fertility treatment or IVF.

There is a man living on the same street as my sister who has never worked a day in his life, he had a leg amputated below the knee because of issues caused by heavy smoking, his surgery and recovery must have cost a fair whack...he's still smoking.

A few weeks ago I went to my local Boots to pick up a prescription for a neighbour, I went just after they opened because in by innocent mind I thought I would beat the queues.

I was shocked that there were about thirty people ahead of me queuing for their daily dose of Methedone (sp?) which they have to open and drink in front of the pharmacist.

The service was originally there to help the sick and the injured, now it is a bloated organisation that is used and abused usually by those that pay little or nothing into the organisation.

I totally agree.
A guy I went to school with was an alcoholic and he got two litres of cider delivered to his door every morning to get him through the day. Who the hell was paying for that service? I'll tell you who, we were. Absolutely ridiculous IMO.
He's dead now though. He killed himself in prison last year. He was on remand for killing his girlfriend as it goes. I know it sounds cruel, but at least it's one less strain on the economy now that he's no longer with us.

 

[donna255]

A friend who is 70 has been suffering from short-term memory loss for months now. Even when I talk to her, she will repeat the same sentences about something we talked about half an hour earlier. Now she moved to a ground floor flat a few months ago and was freaking out as she could find nothing, and it was stressing her. She even said when using her mobile she suddenly would get a weird feeling coming over her head on one side.

So, a consultant man young lovely friendly came out and assessed her and decided a CT scan just to make sure. Actually got it really quickly 16th August since then nothing, no results her own GP heard nothing. She was told to phone the consultant's secretary to ask if any report had been sent to her doctor. So phoned up and the secretary decided to put her through to the consultant to speak to. She got, "How dare you contact me! You have no business contacting me! I will submitted the results when I decide to!" She was in tears coming off the phone. She phoned and got her own doctor and told him what the consultant said to her, and he was very angry how she was spoken to and said made a report against him. Suddenly the consultant has gone off on medical leave due to the stress of the job. And now someone else has taken over and wants an MRI brain scan, as the CT did not show anything. The new consultant wanted to know who told her she had just short-term memory lost? The original consultant used the term, so my friend just thought that is what is wrong with her. The NHS is in a bad way but as she says everything is now just blamed on COVID as a catch-all for why everything is so slow and patients left to fend for themselves.

I totally agree.
A guy I went to school with was an alcoholic and he got two litres of cider delivered to his door every morning to get him through the day. Who the hell was paying for that service? I'll tell you who, we were. Absolutely ridiculous IMO.
He's dead now though. He killed himself in prison last year. He was on remand for killing his girlfriend as it goes. I know it sounds cruel, but at least it's one less strain on the economy now that he's no longer with us.

Not sure if it is really true, but it would not surprise me. It was said that alcoholics got a higher benefit as they needed extra to buy drink?

 

[Dream Girl]

Who knows what’s going on with some….

Virtual



Everybody

 

[Vienna]

Alcoholics can become chemically dependant on alcohol. If they try to suddenly stop drinking or if they go too long without a drink they can have alcoholic seizures which can actually kill them. I`ve seen men have these seizures and also hallucinations and the only way to stop one is to give them a drink.
They need a gradual reduction programme which weans them very slowly and when I worked at the hostel we had a few cans of strong lager locked away and if someone was found in a really bad way we would give them one.
Trying to get them onto a programme involved a long wait, usually about 18 months because of funding and when they did finally get onto a detox I`m sorry to say many returned to the hostel back amongst other men with the same problem and they ended up back on the drink again.
Like gambling, alcohol is readily available and socially accepted until someone falls foul of it and becomes addicted or unable to control it. I`ve seen men prescribed a drug which makes them very ill if they drink alcohol but even then some of them will still drink or simply not take the medication. I`ve also seen men lock themselves away in the hope of doing what`s called a home detox but once again they put themselves through it but when they emerge they`re back amongst other drinkers and on the beer/cider again.
There was never any point in transferring them to another hostel because every hostel had the same problems and as single homeless men they were usually waiting a long time to be rehoused and most of the time there were many people living within the area with drug and alcohol issues and sadly like gravitates towards like, when there is an addiction.

 

[fwend]

A friend who is 70 has been suffering from short-term memory loss for months now. Even when I talk to her, she will repeat the same sentences about something we talked about half an hour earlier. Now she moved to a ground floor flat a few months ago and was freaking out as she could find nothing, and it was stressing her. She even said when using her mobile she suddenly would get a weird feeling coming over her head on one side.

So, a consultant man young lovely friendly came out and assessed her and decided a CT scan just to make sure. Actually got it really quickly 16th August since then nothing, no results her own GP heard nothing. She was told to phone the consultant's secretary to ask if any report had been sent to her doctor. So phoned up and the secretary decided to put her through to the consultant to speak to. She got, "How dare you contact me! You have no business contacting me! I will submitted the results when I decide to!" She was in tears coming off the phone. She phoned and got her own doctor and told him what the consultant said to her, and he was very angry how she was spoken to and said made a report against him. Suddenly the consultant has gone off on medical leave due to the stress of the job. And now someone else has taken over and wants an MRI brain scan, as the CT did not show anything. The new consultant wanted to know who told her she had just short-term memory lost? The original consultant used the term, so my friend just thought that is what is wrong with her. The NHS is in a bad way but as she says everything is now just blamed on COVID as a catch-all for why everything is so slow and patients left to fend for themselves.


Not sure if it is really true, but it would not surprise me. It was said that alcoholics got a higher benefit as they needed extra to buy drink?

I’m afraid it is true, I knew of two alcoholics and both got a very high rate of benefits, we surmised it was so they drunk themselves to death quicker ! Although another one, a functioning alcoholic didn’t, but then she inherited a good sum of money and between the very heavy smoking and drinking was dead less than two years later, still loads of money left, but it definitely finished her off. So the more money, less likely to be around long, I guess they think it saves them in the long run.

Alcoholics can become chemically dependant on alcohol. If they try to suddenly stop drinking or if they go too long without a drink they can have alcoholic seizures which can actually kill them. I`ve seen men have these seizures and also hallucinations and the only way to stop one is to give them a drink.
They need a gradual reduction programme which weans them very slowly and when I worked at the hostel we had a few cans of strong lager locked away and if someone was found in a really bad way we would give them one.
Trying to get them onto a programme involved a long wait, usually about 18 months because of funding and when they did finally get onto a detox I`m sorry to say many returned to the hostel back amongst other men with the same problem and they ended up back on the drink again.
Like gambling, alcohol is readily available and socially accepted until someone falls foul of it and becomes addicted or unable to control it. I`ve seen men prescribed a drug which makes them very ill if they drink alcohol but even then some of them will still drink or simply not take the medication. I`ve also seen men lock themselves away in the hope of doing what`s called a home detox but once again they put themselves through it but when they emerge they`re back amongst other drinkers and on the beer/cider again.
There was never any point in transferring them to another hostel because every hostel had the same problems and as single homeless men they were usually waiting a long time to be rehoused and most of the time there were many people living within the area with drug and alcohol issues and sadly like gravitates towards like, when there is an addiction.

The functioning one I knew was a woman, I tried so hard to point her in the right direction, she had a daughter and two beautiful grandchildren, but to no avail. I also know of another woman whose an alcoholic too, and she is what you would call ‘functioning’ I’ve seen many over the years, as lived in pubs. It’s a terrible thing to see the decline once it starts.

 

[Vienna]

My youngest son`s partner is a nurse and her Mother is also a nurse and is shortly due to retire. His partner`s Dad is an alcoholic and even though he hasn`t had a drink in several years, he is still an alcoholic and will be for the rest of his life. A few years ago he was lucky enough to get a liver transplant and even though he was sober at the time and had been for a long while and has been sober since, he is now seriously ill again and needs another transplant. Even though he no longer drinks he is still paying the price for the many years when he did.
He was a functioning alcoholic too and held down his job as a game keeper, looked after and carried on training his gun dogs and organising shoots, culls etc which obviously involved him using a gun and managed to hide his addiction from everybody even his wife.
It was only when he became so ill and had to be rushed into hospital that she found out the extent of his drinking. She knew he`d sit at home in the evening and have a few drinks but she didn`t know he was drinking throughout the day and also through the night after she`d gone to bed and his many trips outside to check on the animals were actually trips out to his secret stash.
My son`s partner said her Mum was kicking herself and asking herself how as a medical professional she was missing the signs and simply didn`t know what was going on. The answer was, he wasn`t her patient, he was her husband, the father of her children and she trusted him so she never thought to look for anything untoward.
Hopefully he will continue to stay sober and will hopefully receive another transplant. Earlier this year he spent a long time in hospital and nearly died but even after that, he still admits his biggest daily battle is to resist having a drink and even after several years sober, it`s still as hard as ever. He had to give up his job and his beloved dogs and animals and move from their tied cottage but his addiction is no longer a secret and their home is a total dry house where anything alcoholic is not allowed over the doorstep and their children and grandchildren are asked to visit their house because them going to other peoples houses may put him within arms reach of a bottle.
He openly admits he hated the lies, the underhand ways he acted, the urges but the drink was his master and he was its slave. He also told his wife that one day he`d been so depressed he had gone out into the woods with his shotgun and didn`t intend to come back but thankfully couldn`t do it.
He attends group meetings when he`s fit enough and nowadays he`s too frail to get out of the house much but unlike his drinking days when all he wanted to do was to die, nowadays all he wants to do is live.

 

[Silver Fox]

I have a friend with a family member who is an alcoholic.I also destroys the lives of those around them because they are helpless to do anything about it and live on a knife edge wondering when the next emergency situation will happen.

 

[Lemonpop]

I think many of the problems with the National Health Service are because it has become The National Lifestyle Service.

The NHS has to put right botched plastic surgery that has been done on the cheap abroad, care for the idiots that get so intoxicated on a night out they need an ambulance to take them to hospital (I'd leave them laying on the pavement) and the same for those that have taken drugs.

I have no problem with those who identify with being a man, woman, goat or whatever, I have a big problem with the NHS paying for the transition.

Not ever having a child I empathise with other people who can't have a child but not enough that I think the NHS should pay for fertility treatment or IVF.

There is a man living on the same street as my sister who has never worked a day in his life, he had a leg amputated below the knee because of issues caused by heavy smoking, his surgery and recovery must have cost a fair whack...he's still smoking.

A few weeks ago I went to my local Boots to pick up a prescription for a neighbour, I went just after they opened because in by innocent mind I thought I would beat the queues.

I was shocked that there were about thirty people ahead of me queuing for their daily dose of Methedone (sp?) which they have to open and drink in front of the pharmacist.

The service was originally there to help the sick and the injured, now it is a bloated organisation that is used and abused usually by those that pay little or nothing into the organisation.

We stream channel 4 and watch 24 hours in A&E. The number of people who come in for minor scrapes and then moan about the wait is mind boggling. That is in addition to the number of drink related accidents. I had a problem with my eye a few years ago and I couldn't get an emergency eye exam at any optician in our town. Each one told me to go to A&E even the walk in centre told me to do that as I needed to see an eye doctor. I reluctantly went and was eventually sent to the Eye Clinic. The doctor said it was the correct thing as I had Posterior Vitreous Detachment but the symptoms were very similar to a detached retina.

 

[Twilight]

My mum said that if you have good health you have everything, as a materialistic teenager I found her words odd to say the least. As with everything else she was right. Vienna, I often think about you & what you're going through, even with all the current travel restrictions & faff could you have this procedure done elsewhere?

 

[Vienna]

We stream channel 4 and watch 24 hours in A&E. The number of people who come in for minor scrapes and then moan about the wait is mind boggling. That is in addition to the number of drink related accidents. I had a problem with my eye a few years ago and I couldn't get an emergency eye exam at any optician in our town. Each one told me to go to A&E even the walk in centre told me to do that as I needed to see an eye doctor. I reluctantly went and was eventually sent to the Eye Clinic. The doctor said it was the correct thing as I had Posterior Vitreous Detachment but the symptoms were very similar to a detached retina.

They closed the A and E department in my local hospital a few years ago so now we have to travel to the next town for an A and E. I was ok to do the visit when I went because my situation was far from life or death but anybody with a real life threatening emergency not only has a long wait for an ambulance but even a longer drive to an A and E dept.
We have a perfectly good hospital nearby and they have every other department except an A and E but during the height of the pandemic it was practically shut down, wards were closed, surgical list weren`t being done and no Consultants were holding their clinics. Consequently the next town`s A and E were getting the overspill of people who would usually see a GP or who would attend clinics here and from what I saw they were fighting a losing battle.
My son works in a childrens home and the kids he works with have mega issues and recently one of the kids deliberately swallowed something she shouldn``t have done or so she said. They rang for an ambulance and were told there was a long wait for one. In the end one of the staff took her by car which was risky because if the girl had fallen ill en route or worse, then the staff member had no equipment and only basic first aid training. As it was, the girl was crying wolf and turned out not to have swallowed anything but it could have been a whole different tale.

 

[donna255]

Here in N.I. the other week, ambulances parked outside the A and E as nowhere to put patients. One man had a full-blown heart attack no bed and lay on a trolley for 60 hours. Our health minister pleading for people to get their vaccines and help free beds for others.

The simple truth is they are waiting for people to die and free up beds. It has been like this for a number of years.

 

[maymorganlondon]

NHS has been operating as well as it does on the good will of dedicated staff, and despite senior management. GPs increasingly sending their patients to A&E only adds to the mountain of work.

It is a mess, and for decades every government has shirked taking decisions about social care, just to make matters worse. To me, it often seems like passie the parcel where nobody wants the parcel (patient) when the music stops, because the patient’s care will come out of their budget. So hospitals won’t refer patients, but send them back to the GP for the referral instead.

It has become a towering mess, and I wonder if they have the calibre of people required to fix it.

Imo there needs to be more focus on prevention as the best means to cut costs, rather than letting things get dire and expensive to fix… but that would require more focus at grassroots level: better, earlier mental health intervention…more proactivity with patients who drink too much, smoke too much and eat too much.

Why wait to offer bariatric surgery until someone has a BMI of 50, and is diabetic, is housebound, unable to work, has sight issues, toe amputations and more due to complications such as peripheral neuropathy? Why not take steps to prevent or reverse diabetes instead? I find it all frustrating. The bean-counters know the costs but not the value of treatments, and don’t seem to consider the expensive consequences of saving a bob or two in the short term.

Rant over…. For now!

 

[Toril]

I attended my local practice’s PPG meeting this evening (parent participation group) and asked the practice manager whether all our GPs were back in the surgery or still working from home. All our GPS are back at the surgery.

However, apparently it still doesn’t make it any easier to get an appointment. Hopefully I won’t need one for the foreseeable.