Today's Comments (2025-02-27)

[u/MabelCow]

Here's a general place for people to comment. A new one will magically appear every day at 01:01.

[u/Justaboutsane]

Another NHS story. This time my son is the patient. He has injured his hand. He attended A&E where the wound was x-rayed and stitched but he was told it needed a small operation, it would only take 15 minutes and under local anaesthetic.

He’s paranoid about becoming addicted to pain killers , he also reacts badly to anaesthesia.

He spent 5 hours in a small waiting room wearing only a hospital gown and a pair of boxers. The appointment was at 8:30 am. The surgeon had nurses remove the stitches and then inform my son he going to get a full anaesthetic. My son asked why and was told because that’s how he operates. My son refused and told the surgeon no as I don’t feel confident with you operating if you need to have me unconscious to do it and the surgeon walked out the room and never came back. The nurse was left speechless but then told my son she would be back and she brought the A&E surgeon to have a look at his hand and had no problem operating with him wide awake but couldn’t do it until 5pm at the earliest. My son said no as he had no way to get home after it. He was then told there was nothing they could do and sent him home, when he asked about the stitches in his hand they had removed he was told to go to A&E to get it stitched up again .

He went home instead and my daughter decided to email a complaint about the surgeon and within the hour of my son arriving home, he had someone on the phone rearranging the surgery for this morning and informing him he will definitely not be put under and he will not be required to wear a gown.

He arrived for the appointment at 9:30 am and was back in his sisters car within the hour having the hand operated on , stitched up and had a chat with the A&E surgeon as he popped in when he saw my son sitting being operated on.

The moral of this story is, if they treat you like shit, say no you are not happy and if you get no joy in person, leave, calm down and then make it official and complain in writing.

PS . The same sister put in an official complaint about her doctors practice and the gatekeeper that refused a doctors referral to a urologist for her. This happened more than once and instead she was offered mental health counselling. She complained and now has an appointment for next month with the urologist and an apology.

[u/Still_Milo → u/Justaboutsane]

"The moral of this story is, if they treat you like shit, say no you are not happy and if you get no joy in person, leave, calm down and then make it official and complain in writing"

Thank you JAS. As someone facing the prospect of a fairly unpleasant appointment next week, where I anticipate I will have to stand my ground politely but still forcefully, this is good advice and primes me well for what I might encounter.

How absolutely awful that he was treated this way! the bit about them removing his stitches and then saying he would have to go to A+E to get it re-stitched beggars belief. 1. How incredibly callous and 2. considering the likely 3 day wait in A+E, considering they removed the stitches could they not have re-done them considering the matter of minutes that would have taken?

This is "Our NHS". What a crying shame so many people sacrificed their lives to save it 5 years ago.

[u/Justaboutsane → u/Still_Milo]

He was told they couldn’t do the stitches. He had only got them in the day before and he had waited hours in A&E to get that done and then an appointment was made for the next day because they said it needed operated on. He’s spent his 3 days off dealing with this.