Accident and emergency

[AtreuS]

When i broke my wrist last year i got super lucky, it was a sunday afternoon and when i got to north manchester general it was just us and the staff!

There was one other patient in there and i had literally the whole staff hovering round me I had to have a clot removed before the cast was put on and due to it being an "unusual" break i had 4 students watching the procedure, 2 doctors overseeing it, 1 student doing it and 3 or 4 nurses getting me water, talking to me ( i wasnt allowed to look due to people passing out before ) and generally me being the only interesting thing happening in there.

I count my blessings that it wasnt busy, as i was in utter agony with it and i would have puked before long if i hadnt been seen. I was veeery close to having it opened up in surgery and having it pinned, i broke the end of the bone in such a way that it may have naturally sprung back and thus not healed correctly. I got lucky

The procedure to clean out the blood clot was fun, ive broken things before and i thought i knew what bad pain was.... i was wrong.

 

[singist]

Last 3 times I have been to our A & E the waits have been much longer than that.

The last time, my gf with a broken leg left after 12 hours of not been seen as she was, quote "not an emergency and not likely to die" and went to work and x -rayed herself and put her own cast on.

Please explain, as I find it very hard to believe that anyone could put their own cast on (with a broken leg).

 

[danza]

On being discharged from hospital after an overnight stay due to having atrial fibrillations and stupidly high blood pressure for about 18 hours, I was not given any documentation, and a letter was sent to my doctor.

I did ask for a certificate thinger to get myself out of work for the rest of the week though, which was issued by the discharge nurse.

 

[Greebo]

Whilst everyone loves to tell stories of how they always need to wait 3 million years, the facts suggest that this is infact very much the exception.

DOH statistics state that as of September 2009, 98.7% of patients are admitted or discharged within 4 hours of arriving at A&E. This is up from 89.9% in June 2003.

Some regions are as low as 97% which means 3 out of 100 people wait longer than 4 hours. Our hospital is probably one of them.

Also, I get the feeling that once you have passed 4 hours, they are less likely to see you. Reason? If you have one patient already past your 4 hour target and another on 3 hours 50 minutes, which one are you going to see first? The one there the least amount of time as you don;t want them to go past 4 hours and count against you with the statistics. I have often thought this is the reason that if the A & E is busy and you go past 4 hours, you are likely to become one of those people who are there for up to 12 hours.

 

[Greebo]

Please explain, as I find it very hard to believe that anyone could put their own cast on (with a broken leg).

She's a vet. They have an x ray machine at work and yes, to be truthful, she did the cast with the assistance of a vet nurse and it was the kneecap broken, not the leg to be exact.

Interesting fact is that vets can legally treat both animals and humans whereas doctors can only treat humans and not animals as technically vets are more qualified than doctors.

She did go back to to hospital later though with her x rays but they insisted on doing new ones as they were "not allowed to use hers". Even dafter, was the ones they took were appauling and the doctor ended up using hers anyway!

 

[RDM]

They don't - they have a hugely critical target of 4 hours to either admit you to a ward in the hospital, or discharge you.

Though most people see it all as the same thing - so its entirely possible he was admitted to a ward etc.

The last time I was in A&E I was kept in for 24 hours. Was never admitted to a general ward, stayed in A&E on intravenous anti-biotics for 24 hours.

 

[Nexus]

It may suck to have to wait, but at the end of the day its prioritized based on how serious the cases before you are.
It's not like they are going to just let you die there, they have years of experience managing it.

I'd say that the wost time to possibly injure yourself is a Friday or Saturday night, as that's when A&E is going to be busiest. I spent time with a broken bone once on a Saturday night while a large number of people were drunk, one even causing trouble.

 

[Greebo]

I'd say that the wost time to possibly injure yourself is a Friday or Saturday night, as that's when A&E is going to be busiest. I spent time with a broken bone once on a Saturday night while a large number of people were drunk, one even causing trouble.

Satiruday and Sunday afternoons aren't great either. I was run over and went to A & E and the place was full of people in football kits who had injured themselves playing football.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I've spent a bit of time in A&E following different staff around from the Triage nurse to the Trauma Consultant.
Triage is an old French Army thing where the wounded were sent 3 ways but now it is 5 ways so it should be Cinquage.
Dotted all around A&E are monitors showing patients waiting times and staff can see the 4 hours creeping up and where possible they do try to get them out but it's not always possible.

 

[Greebo]

They don't - they have a hugely critical target of 4 hours to either admit you to a ward in the hospital, or discharge you.

.

Maybe so but it does still happen. My gf last Christmas snapped both her achilles tendons. She was admitted to A & E at 11pm and was seen within the hour but only went to ward at 9am the following morning.

I think in the meantime, about 7 doctors had come to inspect her as nobody had heard of a person snapping both achilles tendons as its very rare.

 

[Cyanide]

I've been in twice in the last few years. Both times late afternoon on a Friday. Both times I was being treated within 5 minutes of getting there