"My experience in ED"

This is such a sad experience I really don’t know if anyone can help. But they definitely need to get better especially that the most sick and vulnerable are needing their assistance. I am immune suppressed I suffer aplastic anemia bone marrow failure. I am an outpatient at another hospital and on this day, I didn’t feel well, shortness of breath, races heart and a headache. I normally have an appointment later in the week as an outpatient. I called the outpatient clinic at the other hospital and advised them of my symptoms and they recommended I go to emergency. I just could feel I was not right. They said go to your nearest hospital and give them the medical alert so I went to Joondalup when I got there I was greeted by the nicest person. I felt she understood I was immune suppressed and let the nurse at the window know.

I was taken in quickly, gloves, masks etc, everyone was wearing masks due to covid. My partner was not allowed to come in so they waited in the car for 4 hours. In that time a doctor saw me, put a cannula in and advised I needed blood, they said they would do it on the ward. I advised I did not want to stay the night and the light was hurting my head. I felt no one answered so until the early hours of the morning the following day, I just laid there in a bed in emergency department, no common sense approach was taken then suddenly a nurse comes in and moves my bed to another section. Now I was immune-compromised, very stressed on what was taking so long and already knowing that a few months' time was my transplant day. I started getting thoughts that I would not make it, why have they just kept me here.

With no medical attention, I could have rested at home and spared the bed. It gets worse, I felt the section I was moved to was not clean, it had containers of previous patient's urine I believe, sitting there. I called out to a registrar across from me and told them. They just looked at me and took the urine away, not once did they assure me anything would be ok. So the nurse was trying to find my file and they all could not find it. I threatened to leave, they said they're looking for my file and I would be moved to the ward. Around 1am, I was moved to the ward, no one came to speak to me, maybe one nurse after I rang the bell a few hours later and finally a registrar came and apologised. I cried explaining that none of my symptoms has been rectified that I could have rested at home, not the Ed corridor. It was now an hour and a half later and still no blood transfusion. Another thing that added to the stress is they told me my blood was 70, I could not figure out why I felt like this when I had been 70 before and not had these symptoms. When the registrar can’t, they explained no, they were 61. They apologised for the horrible experience I had and also not been notified of the correct blood results.

For me, I just wanted to write because nothing will take away the experience I had. It was so unpleasant that I found myself thinking I would rather suffer at home and wait for my outpatient appointment than deal with this. Then I thought this is not right. We are sick scared and not fair to be put through this. I don’t want someone else to ever have to go through this.