Carol you have every right to complain, but I found that a letter of complaint to your MP & a copy sent to the hospital helps. It did for me when I complained about the lack of nurses in the Chemo unit. Perhaps you could write to your MP when you are feeling better.
It is a sad fact that the NHS, as we have known it, is likely to be less patient friendly from some overworked nurses. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will return to the excellent care we have known, but I am hoping I am wrong!
Continued.
Sometime in the night they came & took me to the assessment ward. A kind nurse on that ward said it was ok for me to have a shower. This was at 3.00am. Once or twice a bell went off & they all came rushing in to attend the patient who had set it off.
At 4.00am I finally managed to nod off & then just after 5.00 I was awakened by a nurse lifting my arm & drawing blood from the vein in my arm. She didn’t say what she was going to do – perhaps she thought I would be too tired to wake up!!
After this I couldn’t get back to sleep & neither could the lady in the next bed to me. I heard her ask the nurse for a cup of tea & the nurse asked if she took sugar. I was longing for one too so I asked her if I could have one. Her face changed & she looked at me like I was dogsh*t. ‘Oh I knew if I made tea for one they all would want one’ she raved. She scurried off without making either of us one.
She must have thought better of her action because half an hour later I asked her again & she brought us both one. She slammed mine down but stayed to have a pleasant chat with the lady in the next bed. The nurse was Indian & so was the lady so that explains that…
An hour or so after that a male nurse came to me showing me a needle & told me he had to inject it into my belly. Before I knew what was happening the needle had gone in my belly. 10 minutes later I began to feel light headed & faint & sick. I cried out that I felt ill & they rushed over to me – lay me flat & took my blood pressure. It was much higher than it should have been. It’s a wonder I didn’t have another heart attack! I heard him say to one of the nurses ‘probably a local reaction’ but they never explained anything to me.
Later that morning the cardiologist came to see me & advised me to stay in a few more days & have a stent fitted. I refuse on the grounds that I needed to go home to get Tony sorted out. I was also feeling sad & depressed by the way I’d been treated by some of the ethnic staff but I didn’t tell him that.
I think they should have sent a social worker or occupational therapist to help sort my home problems out but they didn’t.
I refused to stay in & I had to sign my discharge papers saying I was going against medical advice. The cardiologist was arrogant & he walked away from me with a parting remark ‘ You may have had a mild heart attack now but it might be a big one next time.’
He did however leave me some medication & some talk about inserting my stent at an outpatients clinic.
I was given no information or advice on aftercare – when I can drive again - when I can exercise again – what kind of exercise etc. I felt I was just set adrift.
Thank goodness for the internet. I’m getting that sort of information online and from the British Heart Foundation…
Thanks for reading my story everybody. 
Great reading, as always Carol. Could that injection in the stomach be a blood thinner? I seem to remember having such an injection when on an enforced stay. Not sure if in stomach or elsewhere though.
I am wondering if the doctor’s attitude was because you wanted to be discharged, again all advice. Just a thought.
I do agree, though, that the way nurses, or some, behave, can be addressed and rectified. Once when I had my nose op, and had been violently sick for many hours, I wanted to get up for the toilet and a nurse said I hadn’t lost the use of my legs. If I met the bitch now I’d smack her one!!!
Hi Carol,I’m so glad to read You are Home safe but horrified at Your treatment in that Hospital,I wonder if the same would have happened if You had been a young Person with the same symptoms!..Glad too You have a loving Family to go Home to as so many older People in the same situation don’t,do take care of Yourself,
lots of luv,
May.
I sometimes think they are being sadistic in targeting the patients who are too ill and vulnerable to fight back.
I think that too Jazzi.
They would not treat a strong young man in that way or talk to them in that way.
When Ady came to visit me & later to take me home, I noticed a marked difference in the way the staff reaction to me when he was there…
Isn’t that bruise from the belly injection a beauty?
It still hasn’t faded almost a week later.
Yes Jazzi it was blood thinner…
Blimey! That bruise. And that outlook, in the first photo. That is diabolical. No privacy whatsoever.
This is an awful happening , when you are so poorly and in need of support and care , I’m quite upset for you Carol and am glad you logged it . Send it upwards , let people know . Where was the care ?
I dread getting sick and ill and taken to hospital
Hey, it’s a necessary part of NHS training.
When I was in A&E and needed a tinkle a voice shouted out … ‘You, yes you! Where do you think you’re going?’
Going for a tinkle, says I.
Well you shouldn’t be moving around. Get back on your trolley.
Hours later … I was finally sequestered in a ward and once again was caught, would you believe it by the same Doctor who had come up to the wards,
‘You again’, said a shirty voice as I shuffled along. ‘I’ve already told you.’
Except this time it was because the nurses had told me I had to have a shower immediately upon admission because of novo virus and other stuff.
It’s good to get back home after a hospital stay isn’t it. And it’s good to see you feeling well enough,with your pneumonia, to be posting.
Get well soon Carol.
Crikey Carol. I’ve not seen a hand as bruised as that since QE2 shook Truss’s hand. Not that that’s an omen!! 
Hi Carol
Glad you are back home safely .
What an appalling lack of care you have experienced I suggest that you send this blog as well as photos to your MP and perhaps to the hospital management .
There is no excuse for unkindness towards people when they are at their most vulnerable .
I wouldn’t worry about them smiling at you at reception they are busy and are probably used to patients being wheeled in ay all hours so they just don’t notice . My experience of ( only visiting ) is that no one seems to notice anything .
When my Mum had a heart attack I approached one of the doctors ,a young woman in the middle of the night and she could barely lift her eyes from her computer saying it wasn’t her responsibility. The next day she was introduced as my mothers doctor . Needless to say I took her to task re her behaviour only a few hours earlier and she quite literally slunk out of the room .
On the plus side a young Indian doctor could not have been more kind and compassionate. He knew my mother was dying and there was nothing anyone could do .
The injection in the stomach is probably due to prevention of blood clots ( I could be wrong ) but when my husband was very ill in hospital in Spain when he was eventually discharged he had to have an injection in the stomach every day for a month to prevent clots / embolism and they were administered by me . The needles were tiny and while I had given injections to dogs and horses before I had never done it to a human . I must though poor Mr M had no bruising like yours .
In the hospital we found the Spanish consultants kind and polite .
Also in the U.K. the cardiologist was kind on his checkups. although I experienced arrogance from my husbands English GP ,the Spanish doctor had given us a letter ( in Spanish ) for us to give to him outlining the treatment he had received .I translated this and the doctor asked me rudely what certain things meant .
Of course I could not translate medical short hand re the arteries which they had done in capital letters .When I researched this I found they were the same as British doctors used so he was just being a p………k !
Usually Philippino nurses are kind and competent but there are always exceptions to the rule and nurses ( of all ethnicity ) can be hard it’s as if they are hardened towards suffering . The ones that treated my Mum in her last hours were kind .
Your account both appalled and terrified me because I am of an age and with family background that makes it likely that I too will have a heart attack sooner or later .
I only hope It’s while out walking the dog and does for me quickly .
Thank you for writing this account take care and get well soon 
Aw Muddy - don’t say that.
You won’t have a heart attack if you take preventative medication now…
Thanks for your replies & support everyone. It’s been really therapeutic for me writing it. x
I had a letter in the post today.
My angiogram is booked in for November 17th so not long now.
Carol - sorry for your suffering and I hope you feel better soon.
What I struggle to understand is, what the race of the nurses has to do with their treatment of you?
85% of the English population is White, so the NHS would not have hired these non-white nurses if they are racist. You associated good and bad care to the colour of the person’s skin who was treating you and I do not feel that is the right barometer to judge a person’s character and behaviour.
In fairness @Minx, we weren’t there and Carol was, and if that’s what she felt then that’s what she felt.
Being in hospital is scary and being alone and worried is more so. Glad you are home.
Thank you Dex, I considered this and this isn’t a debate. You know I don’t enjoy debates.
Notably, this is a public forum where she expressed her experience and I conveyed my sympathy and a different point of view. Food for thought perhaps-nothing more.
That is good news … and pretty good considering you discharged yourself when it was on offer. Are you having your stent fitted at the same time?
The sooner the better. My brother has two now and is fine, and has considerably more energy.
