Share review of Queen's Hospital

Queen's Hospital 2024-03-06 Person 2 5 0

I came to A&E with severe chest pain that was shooting down my left arm. I was sent to UTC to begin with with just an ECG. The doctor that saw me was very busy so it’s understandable that he was in a rush, but he decided I did not need any bloods. This is significant as I have a history of blood clots, heart problems and pulmonary hypertension and he did not even do a d dimer or troponin with that history. Then he spoke to the med reg who then proceeded to say I did not need to be seen and did not need any bloods or scans. I had to push to be seen and to have bloods taken and it is extremely hard to advocate for yourself when you are in that much pain. I was completely disregarded and told there was nothing wrong with me and should go home and monitor even though I had a significant history and did not have any proper investigations done. I also noted that at the point of my previous blood clots I had normal ECGs and a negative d dimer. At this point I had to be insistent and told the UTC doctor to call back the Med Reg. At this point the med reg said there’s only a 0.0001% chance I could have a clot on blood thinners - a statistic that I am unsure that can be verified. I insisted once again and then was reluctantly sent to SDEC. Upon entering SDEC they say me straight away as they realised it was serious, here they actually did bloods and ECG and when my heart rate shot up to 145 they moved me to Majors A. SDEC and Majors were amazing. But I will say that the wrong persons notes were sent over from SDEC to Majors A under my name as I had a similar surname to another patient and it caused a great deal of confusion and I had to step in to clarify that I am not 34 years old but 22. They were ready to send me home because of this error which could have killed me. Upon admission it was discovered that I have a blood clot in my pulmonary vein and my left atrium, which would have killed me if I had been sent home and if I had not stood up for myself. I have already spent 10 days and might need to spend longer due to how serious it is but I was not taken seriously in A&E and it was extremely difficult. I have a good grasp over my health and having a background in health means I can keep up with things but I worry about the patients who might not be able to advocate for themselves

Listen to your patients, don’t interrupt. If they are telling that they are having severe chest pain don’t disregard them as it could kill them.