Every 6 months I have to visit my consultant as an out-patient to assess my current Crohn’s activity. For everyone who is reading
this that suffers from the condition or maybe another Chronic illness, you will no doubt do something similar.
The consultant keeps a regular check on you whilst you are still in need of care. The care can be a simple review of medicine or it can be
a deep discussion into future possibilities of controlling your disease.
I have been under the care of my current consultant for around 5 years. He has been there through thick and thin. I would highly
recommend him and his clinic. They provide a fantastic service which helps more people than it can unfortunately cope with. Quite often the clinics are so booked up that they have to double book patients in the hope that some patients may not require as long with the consultant, or do not turn up.
In the early part of this year my consultant had to take some time out of work. It was all sudden and left the IBD clinic in a difficult
position. All of the out-patient’s appointments were cancelled and everything was shuffled around to try and get it back up and running as quickly as possible.
I know the consultant was away for quite some time but the clinic did start moving again with stand in doctors. I waited for quite some
time to get a letter telling me of my rescheduled appointment. I waited so long in fact that I needed to call the clinic to order more medication and to organise a blood test.
I had assumed that because my Disease had been pretty stable, I had been put to the bottom of the waiting list. I thought the back
log was so big that it would take a while for them to catch up.
On calling my IBD nurse, I was informed that I had been discharged as I had missed my latest appointment. The discharging of patients
is standard procedure and it was up to me to return to my GP to get referred back to my Gastro clinic.
This seemed crazy to me; not only had I never missed an appointment in the history of my Disease, they never bothered to inform me that I had missed an appointment. I could have been left waiting and waiting. I felt extremely upset and frustrated at the lack of contact. I understand that it was all automated and my name was struck off by a computer, but this didn’t make me feel any better. I felt as though I had been left to struggle along on my own. What was I to do about my medication? My GP cannot prescribe the drugs I
currently take. What was I to do about my monthly blood test that was due to ensure the medication isn’t causing me problems? No disrespect to any GP’s but there is no way they could have helped me at this point.
So for the first time in my life I wrote a letter of complaint. I have always been very understanding, even when I have had other
problems with my care in hospital. I could rationalise them and they weren’t major problems in the grand scheme of things. This time hit me hard. A letter to relinquish my frustration was the only way.
Within 2 weeks of sending the letter I had had a few of letters in response. I was informed that my letter had been read and another
letter to say that the matter was being dealt with.
Pretty soon after I received a call from the hospital apologising for how I had been treated and they hoped that I would be satisfied being
reinstated into the care of my consultant.
I accepted the apology and was extremely happy to hear that my next appointment was booked in for the following week. Things moved pretty quickly from there and now seems to be back on track.
I don’t like complaining but in this instance I feel I was justified and needed to get things back under control. My consultant knew all
about the problem I had faced and was happy to know that everything had been sorted.
So do not feel afraid to make your thoughts heard. If you are not happy, you must tell someone. If people don’t know that there is a
problem, they cannot fix it.
Crohn’s update: At the minute things seem really good. I think I’m pretty much back to normal (or as normal we can ever be). No pains,
no discomfort and a pretty regular, stable movement.
I will try not to leave blog updates so long. But being well meant I found it difficult to sit down and write about my Crohn’s. I just
wanted to forget…….
Keep well
Ben x