"Shocked by the lack of compassion"

I developed severe abdominal pain and my GP suspected I had appendicitis and so sent me to the surgical triage unit at QMC. I arrived in the late afternoon. I was told to take a seat in the waiting room. A nurse took my BP and commented that it was very high. I told them that I was in severe pain. No action was taken, despite notices on the wall saying to tell the nursing staff if you are in pain.

A few hours later it was checked again and again I reported I was in severe pain. I had peritonitis and it was agony to move. After 4 hours of sitting in a chair, a doctor called me to an examination room. I could hardly walk. They then told me to go and do a urine sample in the toilet, which I had to walk to unaided and found agonising. Then I had to walk to another room to have a venflon put in my arm and again the nurse commented that my BP and pulse were too high. I then had to walk down the ward to a bed (at least a nurse carried my bag for me this time).

When I got to the bed, I was left to sort myself out. It was agony to bend down to undo my shoe laces, and to get my legs up onto the bed. Only now was I given some paracetamol IV, which barely touched my pain. A few hours later I was taken for a CT scan. I was asked if I could walk, and when I said "No", I was put in a wheelchair. After the scan, I returned to my bed and lay there without moving.

The surgeon returned and told me that the scan showed a huge cyst which was probably ovarian, so they were transferring me to the gynae team. I was taken in a wheelchair to the gynae ward in the early hours of the morning. It was only when I arrived there that I was finally given oral morphine. A gynaecologist saw me and took some more blood. I finally fell asleep around 4am when the pain started to ease off.

The next morning I was seen by a consultant who told me that as I was clinically stable, there was no need for me to stay in hospital, and I should go home and wait for an outpatient appointment when they would discuss an operation date. I was amazed that I was considered well enough to go home with such a huge cyst which was causing severe pain.

After a few weeks I was given an outpatient appointment  for 6 1/2 weeks after my admission, but still no operation date to date. After I went home, I was basically stuck, sitting in a chair as even walking a short distance was painful. Previously I was fit and healthy, doing farm work, gardening, renovating a house and managing a woodland.

I was shocked by the lack of compassion and lack of taking any action over my severe pain. Working in healthcare, in my experience a patient with peritonitis would be immediately put on a trolley, given IV fluids and strong pain relief. I would not expect a patient in severe pain to have to walk from one place to another. I think waiting for 9 hours for strong pain relief is unacceptable.

When I worked in a gynaecology ward, I cannot believe that we would have sent a patient with a very large painful cyst home the following day. A torsion of a cyst is usually considered an emergency requiring surgery?

I was in the fortunate position to be able to afford to go the private route. I had a laparotomy 1 month after that admission. The cyst was 30cm diameter by then and the surgeon said it had twisted on a stalk, and hence the pain. I am still waiting to find out whether it was benign or malignant.