The Letter I Wish I Could Send The Hospital Health Board

To              ,

I have to ask, your email is a joke, right?

I contacted the concerns team and health board to discuss how poorly I was treated by one of your doctors. His views on me and lack of understanding for my other health conditions has meant that I have no support in managing this condition.

I live with multiple chronic illnesses and have done for most of my life. I know how to handle deteriorations, I know how to advocate for myself and I know all too well when a doctor is unwilling to treat me or help me manage my conditions for the wrong reasons.

My life has changed in a lot of ways since my symptoms worsened and led me to a hospital stay and diagnosis but that’s a part of my life. That will always be a part of my life because all but one condition I have ever been diagnosed with do not have a cure. What some have though is the ability to be better managed, to an extent. This won’t cure me but it allows me to live a better quality of life.

I was provided with the basic ways I could help manage my condition, things I had already tried because a simple Google search told me to. What Dr.             didn’t take into consideration is that I can’t do those things because of my other conditions. I am a complex case and I am told this frequently but any Tom, Dick or Harry could have told you that the ‘basics’, the starting points to managing this condition is not possible for me due to my other health conditions and that isn’t complex.

You offered me a choice to remain with Dr.             or see a new consultant, I chose to see a new consultant. You allowed me to wait for months and chase you multiple times to reply informing me that you won’t be allocating me a new consultant because I am under the care of a nurse. A nurse who’s instructions come from the very same Doctor that I have complained about, that has disregarded my other health issues and refuses to help me manage my condition.

I have to assume that if your response was not a joke that there has been a huge over sight on your part.

I take my hat off to nurses they are incredible and a vital part of health care but Nurse      is not a consultant and she is following the instructions of someone who refuses to help me. On 6th July I asked Nurse        for help. I told her how much I was struggling and yet she said goodbye and I will speak to you in 6 months.

I strong disagree with anyone who has ever told me I’m too young to be this sick and sometimes I think the same thing but illness doesn’t have an age requirement. However, I am 22 years old and I can’t spend the day out in the sun with my friends. I can’t drive to go and see my family. My partner has to take me with him when he goes away for work because I can’t be left on my own. Most days I can’t put my own shoes on or pick up the parcel that the postman left on the door step. Not because of my disability or because I have chronic pain but because you are ignorant to my situation and unwilling to help.

If my notes had been read correctly then you should know that as a hospital you let me down during my inpatient stay and left me for 2 months before I could see a consultant who knew about my condition. That consultant then belittled me throughout the entirety of my appointment and refused to help me beyond a request that my health cannot physically meet.

I then had to wait a further 4 months to see a Nurse that I was told would discuss my treatment options, to be told yet again that I should drink more water. I saw my consultant again on that day who refused to talk to me at all as it was the nurses job to discuss my “options” and he didn’t want to speak to me until I had been seen by a neurologist.

I saw the Neurologist a week later, 7 months on and I still haven’t had a follow up with a consultant and I have had to write several letters of complaint to you.

I ask myself, do I feel well cared for and safe under the care of your hospital? No, I don’t.

I have one last question to ask you and the rest of the health board, if this were you, your daughter, sister, colleague or friend, would this be good enough for you?

Regards,
Holly Greader