Derry woman speaks of 'mortifying' 9 days in hospital locker room: 'It feels like I went through that for nothing'

To make matters worse, Zoe Carlin said, her only communication with the hospital staff was an old dinner bell.

Zoe, a film-maker who has worked on Derry Girls, was admitted to the Derry hospital after she began feeling like she was having a heart attack. She said: “You don't really know what a heart attack feels like, nobody really tells you what to expect, you panic straight away.

“When I first went to A&E on Wednesday 20 (March) I was there for 18 hours and got discharged and basically told that A&E was for emergencies. I didn't even meet a doctor. The Tuesday after I felt a lot worse and I phoned the GP and they said I have to go to A&E.

“I went with chest pains and I didn't get seen seriously until I fainted. At that moment they had to admit me as my heart rate was too high to send home. I sat in A&E for 29 hours.”

Zoe then described her experiences in A&E: “It was really awful, there was nine other people, a woman with dementia who was really upset, a woman had a brain bleed, all of us were really severely ill and had been told we were being admitted and yet we were all in this dark corridor, we all got woke up at 5am when the lights came on and people came in to do the cleaning.”

Even though Zoe was eventually admitted she didn’t feel like she had been taken seriously.

“It felt they thought I was being a nuisance for the sake of being a nuisance. I wouldn't have stayed in a cupboard for nine days, it wasn't a nice room, I wasn't getting five star treatment. I was missing meals and having to ring this big school bell, but I was there because I was anxious as far as they were concerned.”

For Zoe things got worse as she was eventually assigned her bed in the hospital. She said: “The way it was, it was a cut off in the corridor for the nurses’ lockers. I was told this would be temporary. They put a screen that didn't fully block out the corridor. There were no windows or air, just a little cut off in the corridor. If I wanted it open for light I'd have absolutely no privacy. They forgot to give me my breakfast the first morning.”

Her communication with the staff in Altnagelvin was limited to an old dinner bell, and she described her feelings when she was handed the bell: “It was mortifying, a nurse said she would get me a bell, I thought it was one of the remotes. I had to ask someone in visiting hours to ask to get me a bell. When they did give me it I thought, ‘oh my God, I have to use this?’ It's a really loud bell and I'm ringing it to go to the bathroom. Everybody knows I'm going to the bathroom, I get wheeled through the whole ward, it's just so mortifying. You just feel like you are such a bother, if I wanted to brush my teeth or get changed in the morning I'd have to ring the bell and use the bathroom for 10 minutes and a nurse had to wait outside for 10 minutes.”

Zoe said that because she could walk, every time she rang the bell she felt like “I had to bother this nurse just to go to the bathroom which made me feel really bad”.

"I was wired up for four days so I couldn't even wash myself properly. They offered me a basin to use, I just didn't feel comfortable with it,” said Zoe.

Despite all the turmoil Zoe went through she still had respect for the nurses of Altnagelvin, saying: “I think the nurses were trying their best, my granny was a nurse, my best friend is a nurse, I know exactly how much pressure they were under. I know everyone blames them but they're trying their best.”

After her 29 hours in A&E and nine days in a corridor, Zoe’s condition still remains undiagnosed. She said: “I'm still in pain, I still feel the same as I went in. It feels like I went through that for nothing.”

Responding to the concerns raised by Zoe, a spokesperson for the Western Health & Social Care Trust (WHSCT) said: “These concerns have been shared with the relevant Clinical teams, however, due to patient/ client confidentiality we do not provide comment on individual patients.

“If a patient/client or their relative has any issue in relation to their treatment or the service they have received, we would encourage them to raise these issues through the Trust's comments and complaints system - the Patients' Advocate Office. The Patients' Advocate Office can be contacted on (028) 7161 1226. All complaints received are investigated promptly and dealt with in line with Trust policies.”

The spokesperson continued: “We are acutely aware of the continuing challenges and extreme pressures not just in our Emergency Departments but across both of our acute hospital sites with full escalation of beds on all wards and departments.

“In the Western Trust when we learn of examples where care falls below the standard we expect, we review the circumstances and explore ways to improve care in the future.”