"Rude and unprofessional"

I went to SCGH ED in the early hours of a recent morning. I had just finished a huge shift at work and hadn’t eaten in over 24h, seeing as the last time I ate (about 2am) I threw up copious amounts of blood. I felt the triage nurse was immediately dismissive and short with me and trivialised my complaint. I was not asked about pain, I was not given a wristband and they did not take a full set of obs.

While sitting in the waiting room, I could hear talking over the intercom. It was the clerical staff talking about patients in the department over the intercom. I informed the triage nurse that the waiting room could hear snippets of private information and when the nurse told the clerks they then gasped and I recall they said oh my god we were talking about patients! This was the first thing that struck me as completely unprofessional and as I waited over several hours, I continued to witness similar behaviour from both the nursing and clerical staff. The nursing staff were stood in a cluster in the nurses station and I believe they were loudly gossiping about other staff (so-and-so always does this, it’s so annoying, they are so useless, etc.), generally complaining, talking about patients (the two patients in the waiting room have had such-and-such happen and now they’re just sleeping, haha so funny)  and the resus that was taking place in the busier area of the department. I completely understand these types of conversations being had between coworkers in the workplace, however I felt it was grossly inappropriate to conduct these conversations so loudly without any care whatsoever about who could hear. It was very difficult not to overhear the conversations taking place.

I was also unimpressed that it seemed the staff spent their time standing around chatting and gossiping instead of, I believe, keeping their eye on the patients waiting and offering care. A few hours into my wait, I was given anti-nausea medicine upon my request for some panadol for the pain I was in (I am really grateful to the male nurse who went to get a doctor to sign off on several medications to help make me more comfortable). I felt annoyed that there were obviously asked if I was allowed to eat since I was there for what I thought was probably a mallory weiss tear and I had previously been told not to eat solid food to help it heal. The nurse seemed annoyed as they said something to the effect of if you’re going to eat you’re going to eat, we can’t force you not to, when I just wanted to know if it would be advisable or not.

I was eventually sent home with a prescription which my pharmacy told me was not valid as they had used the wrong paper, but no discharge paperwork or instructions at all other than to avoid alcohol and smoking.