Kealin
2/5
I'd pay not to go to this hospital.
I had my hip replaced at this hospital and I can say it's by far one of the customer services I've ever received anywhere, let alone a hospital.
I started off my consultation where my immediate family had to sit in the waiting room and weren't allowed to join me when I wished for them to be there. During this meeting I was given the option to either be put to sleep during surgery or kept awake. I asked if I could be put to sleep as this was my first major operation.
My 2nd meeting was with the anaesthetist who was very unprofessional and quite rude. He started off the meeting 20 minutes late, which I didn't mind too much as I appreciate how busy they are. However, 3 minutes into my meeting with him he was trying to rush me out the door by explaining I was already over the time he had allocated me which was because he was late and not because we had taken too long. During the meeting he was very disorganised, he didn't have a clue what operation I was having done, and he even went as far as challenging the date and time my hip operation was due on because he didn't know. I asked him if he could check the time and date as he said he didn't think it was correct on the letter and he said I had to phone in the next day as he never had access to this information. When phoning in it turned out to be the correct date I had thought it was in the first place. During the meeting he was telling me I'd be awake yet in my prior meeting I had specifically asked to be put to sleep. I challenged his comment and said I wanted to be put to sleep and he said no I had to be awake as this is better for me and was trying to show me images of previous patients on his mobile of how relaxed people were during the surgery whilst awake.
On the day of my operation I was very nervous and the doctor and the anaesthetist (Glen which was a different one to the one I had my meeting with, thank god) were absolutely incredible and they and one of the nurses are the only reason this isn't a 1 star and is instead a 2 star.
After my operation I was in insane amounts of pain which could've been due to the doctor doing the surgery having to use bigger tools than expected because my bones were apparently very strong. With the amount of pain I was on very strong pain killers which affected my ability to urinate. I asked for a catheter to be put in which took them over 12 hours to do and in this time I was in so much discomfort.
The majority of nurses were very rude and just trying to really get you out the door and weren't listening to much of what I was trying to say in terms of me being in excruciating pain always referring to other patients not experiencing what I was which was very frustrating.
The worst person was Warren who was the physio. He started off asking "are you NHS or private?" which I think is extremely wrong. When explaining I was NHS his attention immediately shifted to other patients and didn't give much time at all. In fact he gave me so little time, he didn't even make sure the toilet seat I was given was connected properly which resulted in my partner falling on the floor. If that was me after the operation that could have been severely painful. I told him about this and he said "sometimes they just pop off". Now, I've had this toilet seat at home for 3 months now and it has never "popped off". The shear fact that he blamed it on the equipment and didn't even so much apologise to my partner I found absurd. And there's more. During my first few steps, he was standing next to me where he was meant to be watching and assessing me, but was instead looking into other patients rooms. I asked him if he could help me go to the toilet where he said "I'll be just outside if you need me", when I got out the bathroom he was no where to be seen and had just left me. Considering this was my first time walking, I would have thought he would've cared a little more but there was none whatsoever.
