"Felt ignored and dismissed in ED"

I had this large lump on the inside of my upper thigh that was extremely painful, it hurt to walk or even sit. I originally thought it may of just been a boil, but when I woke up one morning it had doubled in size. By that night I was in a lot of pain and could not take it anymore. I drove myself 40 minutes to my nearest ED.

When I saw a doctor they took the dressing I had on the wound off and examined it. When this doctor was pushing, squeezing and poking it I was trying my hardest not to jump out of my seat, my knuckles were white by the end of the examination from grabbing the seat so hard. The doctor then told me to put my pants back on (they did not even redress the wound) and stated that they can give me antibiotics as it does look badly infected and that is all they could do. In my opinion, you would think that if a wound was infected and you took the dressing off that you would put a new one on, to help contain the infection.

I took the script for antibiotics and got the script filled the following morning. By the day after, I was feeling nauseated, headache, chills, weak, fatigued, and dizzy. My boss sent me home from work as I did not look well. On my drive home I had to pull up and vomit. When I got home I went to have a shower and I did not have the strength to change the dressing on the would which was now leaking pus and it had soaked all the way through the dressing. That night I spoke to my relative who is a nurse and explained the situation and all my symptoms, they advised me to go back to ED as what I was experiencing may of been the start of sepsis.

I drove myself again the 40 minutes to my local ED. I was seen by a different doctor to the one I saw on the first night. I explained everything to this doctor. They then gave me a sheet and told me to take off my pants so they could examine the wound, they then left the room so I may take my pants off and cover myself with the sheet. When they came back in a few minutes later, they only closed the door two-thirds of the way. They then asked me to lift the sheet so they could look. I had to ask this doctor to close the door all the way, as I did not want all the people walking the corridor to see me with no pants on. They closed the door, half took the dressing off and poked it. I recall they said it did not even look infected so it can not be sepsis, even though you could clearly see on the dressing that there was pus and it had soaked through the whole dressing. They did not even put the dressing back on, I had to do that myself and it was not staying. They did not even offer to redress it or get me a new dressing.

They explained that it is not sepsis because I was not tachycardic, even though I was showing many other symptoms. I explained to them that something was wrong and that I would be seeking a second opinion and be making a complaint to the hospital. After I said this it seemed they offered to do bloods and get another doctor in ED to review. I told them not to worry that I will go see a GP and that I did not trust this ED anymore.

Never in my life have I felt so ignored and dismissed. This ED made me feel as if I was exaggerating and making it up.

The next morning I got into see a GP at a local medical center, once I told them about what has been happening it seemed they themselves could not believe I had been treated so poorly by the local ED. This GP examined the wound, redressed it and we discussed that they did not think it was sepsis but it definitely was badly infected. She explained that the certain antibiotics I was put on were strong and often make people feel sick. We mutually decided for me to rest, change the dressing often, and for me to come back in 2 days for a review to see if has worsened or improved.

I am disgusted by the local ED and how they treated me. Based on my experience, I have heard so many stories from others in my community about how similar and worse situations have happened to them by the ED.