Share review of Addenbrooke's Hospital

Addenbrooke's Hospital 2023-08-30 Person 4 5 0

This was my first ever visit to Addenbrooks and I was immensely surprised by the hospital both in a good way and a bad way. I was extremely impressed by the vast majority of medical and other personnel at the hospital and during my visit I was clearly able to see that people can be viewed as either “givers” or “takers”; Givers are all of the staff at the hospital as they have been selected to give back to society their time and effort in caring for sick people. Takers are patients only who only consider their own needs with no regards to the wider community and can impact heavily on others to their detriment. I met some absolutely wonderful and caring Nurses who easily demonstrated their angelic attitudes towards me. One of the most endearing memories of my visit will be how one of the nurses removed a needle that had been in my arm for several days. She did it with such care that I mentioned to her that that was the best I had ever had a dressing removed. She just smiled and I was very humbled. There was one incident which was not good for me. I was taken from ward a5 (floor 5) to have a CT Scan and when this was done I was taken by a Porter to some kind of A&E Assessment unit and completely abandoned by the Porter. I was on my own and had no idea what I was doing there. I had taken laxatives just prior to the scan and became extremely anxious. After around 40 minutes I was able to speak to a member of staff who realised that I was in the wrong place and needed to be returned to the Ward and he arranged for this to happen immediately. Overall this incident left me feeling very vulnerable, frightened and anxious. The incident was further worsened as I was left in the A&E Unit very very close to a very dangerous Convict who was chained between a female Prison Officer and a burly Policeman. I recognised the Convict immediately and I am still dealing with my anxiety/trauma following this incident. Prior to my visit to Addenbrooks I had no idea of what to expect in a Neurolgy unit and I am still struggling with the experience of being in a room next to other patients who were “howling” like wherewolves throughout the day and night unless they were sedated. I felt their pain for hours on end but could do nothing. I would have liked to have had a member of staff brief me on this behaviour and that I might expect obscenities to occur at any time and that I could rest assured that excellent care was being provided by the hospital staff. Overall my experience was very very positive but with some definite areas for improvement.