"I felt alone and un-cared for in the ED."

Recently, I presented to Joondalup ED alone, after being advised to attend by St John Urgent Care.

I felt the triage nurse was cold and short with me as they took my obs and told me to put a mask on. I get it, ED is tough, the place is heaving, I've been there but I felt rubbish and as we all know, an unfriendly face doesn't make you feel much better.

I had been struggling with fevers all day and had a temp in excess of 38.5 - I told the nurse I'd last taken paracetamol at 4pm and it was now 8 so I knew I was due. I was tachy (110+) too and SOB, I'm also told by my lovely friends that I looked like crap (it's fair, I did). I wasn't asked if I had any pain (I did) which is part of any triage assessment. I was asked to take a seat and I'd be called eventually - obviously, I've worked in this area and I know the paperwork and the workload.  Perhaps I was a little sensitive as I was feeling so ill but I felt upset at the cold reception and apparent lack of compassion, I couldn't imagine being like that with my own patients. I sat for two hours feeling worse and worse, my friend had arrived to sit with me and asked if I could be checked on due to this. The lovely clerk said that they would ask a nurse to repeat my obs. Another while had passed, it was nearly 10pm and I still hadn't had my obs repeated so my friend was fortunately able to take me to receive treatment an hour away.

My self-diagnosis was confirmed. My concern is that if I had a patient with those obs, their score would be high enough to warrant a review within 30 minutes (as per standard vital observations chart) - I trust that my obs were indeed recorded correctly.

I know you're busy and I can manage things myself but I wouldn't want any other patient feeling that unwell who was on their own or vulnerable to be left in the waiting room for so long without another assessment. I could also tell patients didn't want to sit near me because of the mask - fair enough, I wouldn't want to sit next to me either.