"Long wait?"

Recently I had my worst experience ever at an emergency department. I suffer from severe back pain, I have L4/L5 stenosis and a crushed nerve route causing me to be in immense pain.

I arrived at the ED in the morning and explained this to the triage nurse, she did not inspect me or triage me at all. Sent me to reception and said there would be a long wait. I waited for 2 hours on the hospital chairs with a bad back before laying on the hard floor to try and relieve the pain and had several nurses and doctors walk past me without even asking if I was ok. After over an hour laying on the waiting room floor a trainee nurse from another unit finally come to ask if I was alright. By this stage I could not get up off the floor because of the pain. After three and half hours I was finally seen to and put into a bed after watching several patients come and go after arriving later than me. I had to stay in overnight in the end after the original nurse saw me and told me it would be a long wait, yet the waiting room was basically empty.

In my opinion, this is not good enough as I could now have permanent nerve damage in my back from being told to wait for so long without pain relief and my body was going into shock because of the pain. I believe the triage nurse is responsible for me ending up in a bed overnight, as I wasn't adequately looked after for the pain when she knew what the problem was and still seemed to have me at the bottom of the list to get seen until it became too late. I feel this could have been avoided if she had have acted quicker in response to my pain instead of telling me to wait. This all on the waiting room's camera how long I waited for before being seen and getting help off the floor in the waiting room. Where is the duty of care to patients?

I heard lots of complaints from others.  I believe something needs to change.