"Health concerns dismissed"

About: Huntlyburn House

(as a service user),

The prior 24 hours before my planned admission as a voluntary in patient, I took two seizures which caused new and pre-existing injuries to worsen. I made staff aware of the issues but these concerns were simply dismissed. I spoke to the senior staff member aswell regarding this I was told I wasn't there for my physical health and that I should be focusing on my mental health.

At this stage it was afternoon time on day 2 of a 6-day admission. I hadn't even received the basic physical examination, which is conducted on arrival usually. Only on day 3 the duty ward doctor discovered the extent of these clear to the eye injuries and offered to increase my pain medication and suggested Physio input while I was on the ward. This is the funny part the OT had seen me and did an assessment on the first day and agreed I was perfect capable of doing everything for myself when it was apparent this simply wasn't true. I feel that pressure from social work management affected this decision. Otherwise they would have identified these problems, but wrote me off as fit and well and it was only apparent to staff I wasn't when the doctor did a physical examination.

Now I'm not medically trained but I can tell when someone is in severe pain. I was dismissed by another staff member for even suggesting that someone look at my pain medication and was told it's my fault that my medication was reduced after following an overdose prior to my admission. Basically I felt blamed for my poor mental health and that I had to just get on with the physical pain because I made that poor choice. Talk about working without judgement - not very professional!

Later I self discharged and staff were happy to let a patient do this even after telling them about a suicide attempt and that I'd had intentions to end my suffering myself.

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Responses

Response from Philip Grieve, Associate Director of Nursing for Primary and Community Care/Chief Nurse Health and Social Care Partnership, Primary Care, NHS Borders 2 years ago
Philip Grieve
Associate Director of Nursing for Primary and Community Care/Chief Nurse Health and Social Care Partnership, Primary Care,
NHS Borders
Submitted on 13/02/2023 at 17:32
Published on Care Opinion at 17:32


Dear Itsokaynottobeokayvet

I am sorry that your experience and admission to hospital was not helpful and would urge you to discuss this matter with your allocated key worker that supports you within the community in the first instance.

If you remain unhappy in relation to your care and treatment then I would suggest that you contact our patient experience team who can lodge your concerns through an informal or formal complaint process.

Contact details are:

Email: patient.experience@borders.scot.nhs.uk.

Telephone: 01896 826719

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