"Dismissing symptoms"

Recently, I had a turn in the middle of the night. I knew it was relevant enough to call the hospital for advice. At that stage, I wasn’t fainting so I thought I’d just rest and see if it goes away. So I hung up after that and when it escalated, I started to feel faint. I rang the hospital again as it was feeling serious and that’s when they said call the ambulance

The ambulance came around and found me on the floor. By this time, I’m freezing. I couldn’t move to reach the blanket so afterwards I said to the paramedic, could you please get me that blanket and I recall the paramedic replied to wait a minute, they need to finish their paperwork first. I would have thought that the paramedic would have known I was freezing, why would they not just help me and pull the blanket over me. Then the paramedic said they were going to move me to put me on the stretcher. I told them I was going to faint and I recall they told me that no, I wasn’t going to faint. Eventually, they got me onto the stretcher and got me inside the ambulance. Afterwards, they put a paper blanket on me, it was more of a paper covering than a blanket. I felt that this was so oblivious to the patient, I was shivering and in pain.

The ambulance took me to the hospital and I saw there was one staff member in the ED. I did not have a positive experience with this nurse. They seemed very irritated with me and did not seem to care. I felt they could see I was distressed and did not know how to help me. I felt it was almost like the nurse was trying to diagnose me and say it’s nothing because I couldn’t describe how traumatic it was for me. I needed the nurse to have that care, to stand by me and help me feel better and ease my distress. I think about if someone was even worse than me. The nurse wasn’t believing me as the patient, I had to ask them for help.

Both the paramedic and the nurse seemed inexperienced. I don’t know what they can provide to improve the care, maybe more training? I wonder if it was because when the nurse took my history and because I am already on disability payments, maybe that’s why they palmed off the seriousness of what I was feeling. When people mention their disease, because of the staff not understanding it fully, it is not good to just palm off their symptoms as you can’t see their pain threshold. I recall the doctor kept saying they believe that I was hyperventilating and the nurses were asking if I was eating. If I didn’t know myself, I would have believed them. It seems like they palmed my condition off. They didn’t suggest any follow up tests and I had to ask if I could stay till I could get up when he said you can go now. They hadn’t even asked questions relating to the diagnosis they were assuming I had. I feel they think that when you have got a disability, you will always have chronic health issues. But sometimes it is something else, and that will need be addressed.