"The best and the worst"

I collapsed at home after drinking heavily. An ambulance came and took me to Charlie’s, and I had to detox, so I wasn’t in a good way for a few days.

It was really the best and the worst at the same time. Some of the people there were horrible, but most of the staff were excellent. The only issue was that I found they didn’t tend to answer questions, they would walk off without giving you any idea of what was happening. I believe they knew when things would happen, but they didn’t let me know. I kept asking, probably made a bit of a nuisance of myself.

I thought the staff were exceptional in how they handled many difficult patients at night. The phlebotomist and a resident managed to get my drip in, and the best nurse I had was Olivia on my last day, she was great.

But I think I went home a bit too soon. Things weren’t really put in place before I got home, so the first few days were quite hard. They didn’t contact me for three or four days; by that time, I had already sorted things out myself. My friends were fantastic, they helped get everything done in the end, and they also thought I was discharged too early.

It took over 12 hours from when they decided I could go home in the morning to when I actually got home at 7 p.m. I don’t know what the pharmacy was doing. My discharge medications took three or four hours to arrive. I don’t understand why it took so long, and that was probably the worst part of the whole experience.

On the whole, most people were nice, though I found there were a few rude staff members. One of them was friends with the nurses and would come around even when they weren’t working. They were one of the people who was quite awful to me. They would chat with the nurses on the ward, and one of the nurses even had lunch with a patient. I thought that was very unprofessional.

Overall, though, the care was amazing. I believe they work under very tough conditions and under great pressure, and I take my hat off to them.