AIBU - Is it fair for me to live like this?

argymargy

Please don’t take this the wrong way, ferry23, but is there any reason you couldn’t be taught to change your own dressings and be provided with the means to do that?

Please read back, argymargy.
You will see why.

Chocolatelovinggran

ferry, please keep us updated. If you are not to see a nurse today, then I will deliver you to A&E this afternoon, with a book for the wait !

Thank you my lovely- I don't mind asking for help but I drew the line calling you at 4am! And you can imagine what it would have been like there in early hours of Sunday morning .

The frustration and upset of this whole sorry situation from start to finish is I'm positive, not helping my overall health or state of mind. I' m a tough old cookie and I've lived alone for 25 years - that in itself makes you resourceful.

I can feel it wearing me down day by day. I'm very sorry that front line NHS staff are under so much pressure and I'm sure their grievances are well founded and justified. But that's not my fault. The health and overall quality of life of patients is being compromised by refusing to treat them or even care about them "out of hours".

I can understand DNs not working 24/7 but there are 7 days in the week and a wound does not stop oozing at 16.55 hours until Monday.

Your treatment and the sheer callousness of it all shock me.

I am so sorry I do not live closer as you would not be sitting in pain with a soggy dressing falling off your leg. You need to be admitted for rest, elevation and CARE.

Sare and compassion have been removed from the dictionary where you live.

Please don’t take this the wrong way, ferry23, but is there any reason you couldn’t be taught to change your own dressings and be provided with the means to do that?

ferry, please keep us updated. If you are not to see a nurse today, then I will deliver you to A&E this afternoon, with a book for the wait !

Luckygirl3

My heart sinks listening to this sorry saga. It is not just the perfectly ludicrous absence of efficiency but the sheer inhumanity of it all that makes me so sad.
My late OH was a GP. He would not have allowed a patient of his to be treated in this way. I was a social worker in medical settings and we would have been on top of this, not just out of professional pride but out of simple humanity.
And anyone we we might have contacted to expedite help would have been concerned and keen to solve the problem.
I feel so sad that this sense of commitment and care seems to have vanished.

Absolutely Luckygirl3.

What on earth has happened to good old fashioned common sense and compassion? I remember the District Nurses on their bicycles and available 24/7. They most certainly were not 'very militant' as ferry23 was told by 111.
I hope I am never in a position of needing community care.

Ferry I am shocked at the term "militant" applied to the District Nurses. What on earth is happening in the NHS. Surely if a patient needs a visit tbey should have a visit booked. Nothing to be militant about. I can understand being short staffed. But not being militant when suffering people are involved. And they are being unpleasant to the wrong people who cannot affect their pay, staffing levels etc.

I hope that you get a visit today and they will make you more comfortable. Check with them whether they will be coming daily and write down what they say with their name and the office contact number. I hope they will clarify what will happen this week.

Have you got a local group of volunteer drivers who can get you to the surgery or to the community hospital? I am glad you found 111 helpful and sympathetic. I have done on the few occasions I have had to ring them. A friendly voice out of hours when everything seems 100 times worse.

My heart sinks listening to this sorry saga. It is not just the perfectly ludicrous absence of efficiency but the sheer inhumanity of it all that makes me so sad.
My late OH was a GP. He would not have allowed a patient of his to be treated in this way. I was a social worker in medical settings and we would have been on top of this, not just out of professional pride but out of simple humanity.
And anyone we we might have contacted to expedite help would have been concerned and keen to solve the problem.
I feel so sad that this sense of commitment and care seems to have vanished.

Hello everyone.

After the fiasco of losing my trimovate and barrier creams on Friday, I'm afraid things aren't so good.

I was in the most awful pain from tea time on Friday and I could feel the wounds actively discharging onto my leg. At around 2.30am I called 111. A doctor called me about 4am and after listening to all my woes, he said he was going to try and persuade the District Nursing night team to come out, but he warned me not to be too optimistic as they are "very militant" (his exact words).

If not, the only other option was to try and get an ambulance to take me to A & E, but he wasn't sure how I would get back. We found waiting times to be around 6 hours and it's about 14 miles away. I'll not go into detail but it's an A&E you do your best to stay away from. I told him I was shocked that the NHS would waste all that money and resources for a simple dressing change when a 15 minute call from a District Nurse already in the area was all that was needed. He was so lovely, told me if I put the kettle on he'll come round and we could have a long discussion about money wasting in the NHS .
He phoned back about an hour later and said he had persuaded the District Nurse team to come out to me but it would be during the day, they wouldn't come on an out of hours call to me. It was almost 5am by now so I knew that was the best I was going to get.

At around 10.30 yesterday morning I for a call from the District Nurse team. After grilling me for about 20 minutes about my mobility, she then said she hadn't got anyone available and it would have to be Sunday now. My heart sunk, another 24 hours at least of excrutiating pain with the fluid burning back into my leg. I resorted to taking Tramadol which really zonks me out and is quite unpleasant but the pain was awful. However, during my conversation with whoever it was in the District Nurse team, she seemed concerned that this had been going on for so long, and said she was going to refer me to the specialist wound clinic at my local community hospital and that she could arrange hospital transport to get me there and back.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call to book my appointment to see a vascular nurse at yet another hospital and that will be this coming Friday. At least the GP at the surgery who said he was going to expedite it did what he said. I've booked hospital transport for it.

Yesterday was a bit of a blur after resorting to Tramadol. It gives me a couple of hours relief so I drifted in and out of sleep a lot of the day.

I'm now completely confused as to whether I'm just getting a District Nurse today and whether I'm back to the surgery tomorrow or if they will contine to come to me. I don't know how long this referral to the wound clinic will take and whether I'm supposed to tell my surgery - I assume it's in my notes and update will be sent to my surgery.

Hopefully it will become clearer when the District Nurse comes today (or IF she comes today).

My search for a private nurse to change the dressing was fruitless and frustrating. One place called me back and said they could change a compression stocking for me but it would be after 22nd August. Another place which "might" have nurses at another branch and will call me back.....haven't called me back.

Another painful and frustrating couple of days with the added pleasure of the soggy bandaging accompanying me. I simply can't understand this 9 - 5 Monday to Friday mentality. I live in hope a District Nurse will turn up today.

PS. I've already googled medical negligence solicitors before anyone suggests it . (Seriously).

Dear Ferry, I'm new to GN but your post caught my eye. I don't think the way you're being (not) treated is acceptable in 2025. I don't know Kent well, but I do know that NHS Kent and Medway integrated care board (the people responsible for the NHS budget in your area) are trialling a pretty amazing-sounding 'virtual hospital' that would give you the care you need in your own home - along with an App on your mobile so everything's monitored in real time. Not yet happening everywhere in Kent but might be worth asking your GP surgery about? And if they can't help, take a look at www.kentandmedway.icb.nhs.uk Very best of luck and I hope things improve for you soon.

Hope you had a comfortable night’s rest, ferry and are having a reasonable day. Do let us know how you are. 💐

Ironically I did have everything at home and took it all back and forth in what my regular nurse and I christened my Roy Cropper bag. When it became apparent that healing wasn't going to be quick, they put in a huge prescription and stored everything there.
Allira it may be Aquacell it sounds right but I can't be bothered to get off my bottom to look at my home emergency kit.

I wonder what type of dressings the nurse is using?

DH's skin breaks or cuts easily and I find that Aquacell dressings under a soft plaster absorb a lot of fluid and help a wound to heal more quickly. They are available with silver too, which is anti-bacterial and aids healing.

Would it be possible to take the creams home and bring them back each time you have a dressing change? In theory they should be for you alone.

This fiasco could not be invented.

Is the other GN helping you?

Oh dear ferry23 it really is one step forward and one back, isn’t it?

It sounded so encouraging when you wrote that both the nurse and the doctor thought the wound looked drier and healthier and that was just over the course of a couple of days.

Now though if the healing process really has started, great care is needed.
Sorry, I know I’m only stating the obvious but it does seem extraordinary that that recovery could be at risk purely because there’s a weekend coming up.

Did you say you didn’t get anywhere with trying to arrange a private nurse?

I hope you have a reasonably comfortable weekend whatever happens.

You sound a strong competent person, and my goodness you have needed to be.

It’s a deal tho Mum is a dab hand with anything dumpling related so I’ll get her to make them for you.Chicken soup I can manage 😄

Yes please Oreo. With kreplach 😉

You can see that a lot of us feel for your situation Ferry hope you will be ok until Monday meanwhile shall I bring the chicken soup over?😃

As I have said - it wasn't the whole box, just the two creams. Unless another nurse went through all the boxes to find those specific creams I can't see how anyone would know what was in the box? Plus they have loads of barrier creams at the surgery - it's only because of my ridiculously over sensitive skin that they tried a lot out on me before we found the right one.

Oh dear ferry!
You really couldn't make up such a series of events.
I hope this weekend passes painlessly, peacefully and the dressings stay dry!

Please do keep us updated about how you are feeling and how the weekend passes.
So many on here are wishing you well, thinking of you and following your progress.

I'd be wondering if that box of medical stuff had gone missing because there's someone else in the same position - and it got removed by another medic to use on them?

In which case OP probably has a potential ally out there somewhere - ie someone else in a similar position - if she can figure out a way to locate them......

Yes Helter Skelter, my mission over the weekend is to get this all written down chronologically as I think I am going to have to invoke the complaints procedure.

It wasn't the whole box that went missing, just the two creams. We wondered is she put both creams on the sterile pad and then just scooped everything up and threw it away. I couldn't say if that was the case, I wasn't looking.

Have you tried to ask for an appointment/referral to the Ulcer clinic? In the area I live, you can go online and do a self-referral to the Ulcer Clinic nurses. I have had a very difficult wound/ulcer for over two years and after being fobbed off at my GP surgery, or had it dressed at the GP surgery (when I could get an appointment) by practice health care assistances who really did not know what they were doing, I did a self referral to the Ulcer clinic and they have tried everything and the ulcer is now starting to heal. Might be worth a try.
Good luck.

Hopefully Ferry the dressings will hold till Monday. But if they dont then a call to 111 over the weekend would be the best idea. You couldn't invent this. At the moment you want to get to the healing stage before you raise a complaint with PALS or whoever.

Take this weekend to write out exactly what has happened to date so that you will be good to go to take it further when you have the headspace to cope with a complaint.
I wonder where your box of medical stuff has disappeared to. In a GP surgery not many people would have access to a cupboard in a treatment room surely in such a short space of time. Your good nurse must make enquiries next week. That really is not fair on you.
Fingers crossed all will be well till Monday.

What does RTT mean?

Read the thread 🙂
It's often used, but not always the polite version that I used! 😯