A receptionist saved my life and other love letters to healthcare staff

It was the receptionist who took me seriously when I said I had a headache which turned out to be a brain haemorrhage

I’d gone to A&E in Derby, where I was staying for Christmas, with the most dreadful headache. I’d been a radiographer at St Thomas’ hospital in London for 18 years and knew something wasn’t right. It was the day after Boxing Day and there had been heavy snow so it was busy with people who had fallen over.

I was at the reception desk and I’d already been told how busy it was and asked whether it could wait until after the weekend. The receptionist who eventually booked me in reiterated how busy it was but I pleaded with her and told her I knew something wasn’t right – I didn’t get headaches. She could tell how unwell I was and booked me in.

She kept an eye on me in the waiting room and could see how much pain I was in. She kept checking where I was in the queue and made sure I was ok. She told the nurse in charge that I needed to be seen ASAP.

What none of us knew at that point was that I was having a brain haemorrhage. If she hadn’t believed me I’d probably have gone back home and would not be here today.

I never got the chance to tell her that she was perfect at her job, that she showed me care that I will never forget.

Even when I then saw the triage nurse, he made me feel like I was wasting his time and I’d got a cold and a headache. When I was waiting in the minors area she checked on me to see if I was ok. I waited another hour to see a doctor who referred me for a CT scan which showed a haemorrhage due to a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. I went for surgery at 1pm the next day.

I’ve worked in the NHS and I know how rare it is for patients to say thank you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor or a receptionist, a gesture, care and compassion means an awful lot. Although I was saved by a neurosurgeon, Hillary on reception was the only one to believe me. I’ve never forgotten what she did for me.

Jane Gooch, London

A midwife picked up that my newborn baby had had a stroke after the GP had dismissed me

My newborn baby was due for a routine post-partum check. He had been twitching suspiciously, and we had been to the GP, who had dismissed us. We were so concerned about our son’s random movements and subsequent deep sleep that we took a short film of his movements. When I showed this to the midwife asking for her advice, she looked very alarmed and asked to take the film to be checked by a doctor. She came back within minutes and took us to the neonatal intensive care ward, where my son was admitted and medicated.

It was soon discovered that he had had a stroke during birth, causing the epilepsy-like twitching. The diagnosis was very difficult to come to terms with, but now, a few years on, he appears to have fully recovered, consistently scoring above average on all the many cognitive and motor checks he has undergone. He is a sunny and happy child, without a hint of his difficult start.

We will forever remember that midwife’s quick action and astuteness during those first days of his life. Had she dismissed us as the GP did, his fits would have continued and might have caused more brain damage. Her intervention and quick action allowed him to be diagnosed and medicated early on, giving him the gift of a full life, and us the immense relief of having a healthy and happy child.

Anonymous, south-east England

The care one nurse gave me and the kindness in her heart made every difference to my hospital stay

I live with a rare heart disease and have had several operations, including open heart surgery, aged nine; I now rely on a pacemaker.

I’ve spent a lot of time in and out of hospital over the years and have been treated by many medical professionals – some I have known since birth and others I have met once and never seen again. In June 2016, a mature first year nursing student looked after me and she is someone I will never forget.

She was calm and collected and so attentive to everything she was learning. She asked questions about who I was, removing the patient element and getting to know me, as a person. No matter what she was doing, she always had time. I know she had children of her own, and when she was looking after me, I feel she treated me as one of her own.

At the end of her shift, she always came to say goodbye. We shared giggles and at times I shared the sweets I had been gifted with her. Haribo hearts and cola bottles were her favourite. When in pain, she was the first by my bedside, to hold my hand and stayed until I felt better.

The afternoon I was discharged, she overheard me crying in my bed. My family weren’t there and she came in to see me. While I explained that I was happy to be going, she understood my frustration that I still had no answers. I had been in for a week and no test or procedure had revealed what was wrong with me. She drew the curtain around my bed and while I sat and cried, she cradled me in her arms.

The care she gave me and the kindness in her heart made every difference to my stay. She has two more years to go but I know that she will make the most amazing nurse.

Hannah Phillips, London

I never got the chance to thank the surgeon for saving my life. The event led to me becoming a doctor

When I was 15, I was hit by shrapnel on an army cadet training exercise. I was taken to hospital and had emergency surgery.

I never got the chance to properly thank the surgeon or his team for saving my life. I don’t remember the surgery but I do remember how kind he was in the follow-up appointments and how he laughed and joked with me. He also kept my mum from falling to pieces during the first few days after my accident.

The whole event led to many changes in my life including a career change; from wanting to join the army I decided instead to pursue a career in healthcare. It took me a while longer but I qualified as a doctor in 2008 and have subsequently developed an interest in major trauma surgery.

Alex Bell, Sheffield

I don’t know what I would have done without one nurse. Her hand in mine rescued me

I was living in the US when I sadly had a string of miscarriages. On one occasion one became complicated and I was rushed to the hospital with haemorrhaging. I had an emergency procedure in a cubicle in the emergency room – fast, with no anaesthetic.

There was a nurse who took care of me from the moment I arrived. I was hers, she told me, when she disagreed with a young medical student’s view that I could walk to the bathroom alone. She was going to keep me safe.

The procedure I underwent was quick and successful, but painful and I was terrified by the amount of blood and by the looks on the doctors’ faces. This nurse held my hand the whole way through. I don’t know what I would have done without her. I clung to her. Her hand in mine rescued me.

I never got the chance to tell her that she was perfect at her job, that she showed me care that I will never forget and that her tender kindness helped me heal.

Louise Harland, London

I’m able to deal with my mental health problems thanks to the doctor who encouraged me to get the help I needed

I was visiting my local clinic on a routine appointment to get a contraceptive device removed from my arm, when the doctor told me that she wouldn’t be able to put a new one in unless I lost some weight. I burst into tears and she immediately started comforting me as she thought I was upset about the weight comment. I told her that wasn’t it and so she asked me what was really wrong.

I poured my heart out about everything that had gone wrong for me in the last year or so: my mum dying, the crushing anxiety I was experiencing, my OCD and depression, the massive argument I’d had with my father which meant I hadn’t spoken to him for six months and so much more. She listened to me and then she cried too.

I remember thinking that if I could make a doctor cry with my story, somebody who must see and hear all kinds of things every day, then perhaps this was really bad. After I had recovered myself, she told me that I had been through a lot and that I needed to talk to someone.

Because of her I finally understood that what was happening to me was serious and that I needed help. I felt that I was authorised to go to my doctor and ask for help – she gave me the confidence to do that. I got the help I really needed – therapy and guidance – that enabled me to get my life back on track. I trained to become a teacher not long after and I now live in Beijing and work as a university lecturer there. I still have depression and the rest – I always will, but I’m able to deal with it now thanks to the help she encouraged me to get.

Lorna, Beijing

I’m so grateful to all the healthcare professionals who saved my boyfriend’s life when he tried to kill himself

Years before I would meet met him, my boyfriend tried to kill himself. I owe my most heartfelt thanks to the 999 operative who took his call, the paramedics who arrived, the nurses and doctors who treated him after he’d lost an immense amount of blood, and the team on the psychiatric ward he was then referred to.

I don’t know who they are, or how I would ever start to find the people I owe so much to. But to me, that’s the exact point. Thousands of healthcare professionals across the country work every day to support people who are going through the same struggle, and many other just as important struggles. Without these professionals, my boyfriend’s life would be just a memory.

I would like those who deal with people who may seem to have given up on themselves, to know that by not giving up on them, they make a difference beyond comprehension. Their effort and hard work during years of training, is appreciated and valued by my boyfriend and everyone who loves him. Without the dedication of those professionals, his life would have been so quickly and devastatingly thrown away.

Anonymous

• In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.
  

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A receptionist saved my life and other love letters to healthcare staff

I"ve worked as a GP receptionist under a year and I"m already burnt out

It’s only 8.15am and the appointments for the day are already fully booked despite our appointment booking line opening at 8am. Less than a year ago this was an anomaly, now it’s the norm, as are queues out the door when we open. I spend the rest of the morning bearing the brunt of patient irritation, which is mostly aimed at our lack of appointments. I share their frustration because the service is substandard and it only seems to be getting worse.

The calls keep flooding in, the phone rings all day and I often finish work with a headache from the sound. The calls can be incredibly stressful one moment – talking to someone who is struggling to breathe – to mundane the next with patients who are convinced that their three-day cough constitutes an emergency. Patient anger often unfortunately comes back on to the receptionists, I wish they could see the wider picture and direct their anger at the government that is responsible for cutting their services.

Much of my job involves reducing doctors’ workloads so they can spend more time with patients. The administration aspect of the NHS is what keeps the service running. However, the demands of the job and the ever rising number of patients relative to staff make it impossible to do the job well. I think back to my early enthusiasm and my wish to help patients. Now I just feel the steady erosion of my capacity to help. I can’t offer people appointments that aren’t there. I can’t give any patient any real time and attention because there are just so many.

The stressful demands of the job mean that there are high levels of staff sickness; this makes staff morale low and turnover high. I’ve been in the role for less than a year and I’m already burnt out. I’m exhausted all the time and the stress from the job has affected my personal life, making it difficult to sleep and giving me a constant sense of worry. I’ve even been referred to counselling by my doctor because of the stress and anxiety my job causes me, ironically further burdening the NHS.

I work in a deprived area in the midlands and I’ve seen firsthand the long-lasting and far-reaching effects of poverty. The lack of investment and funding in the NHS means that we are having to do more with a decreasing level of resources and a lot of cuts mean people are getting put back on to their frontline GP service.

We have numerous patients with complex mental health issues who we are called about every day, usually by social workers or concerned relatives, because the support they need has been cut elsewhere. There’s the heroin addict who goes in and out of prison and mental health units – every time he is released he goes missing for days until we are informed that he has been sent back to another institution.

There was also a patient who was terminally ill with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but also suffered from severe anxiety and schizophrenia, who called us or the emergency service in a frantic state every day for months until he died. He would often be having panic attacks on the phone or hearing voices – this was incredibly distressing as I felt underprepared to deal with such complex issues. One woman was so distressed after cutbacks on the time she received from carers that she attempted suicide just weeks later. She now remains on an A&E ward.

Some people’s lives are so chaotic and their support networks so poor that it seems that the NHS is the only consistent factor in their lives. How will they cope when services they rely on continually suffer from cutbacks? Without drastic improvements in funding and a greater number of staff, these issues will only get worse. I worry about the future of our practice, our patients and the NHS at large. But for now I’m overstretched and exhausted, I’m certain that neither I nor the NHS can keep this up for much longer.

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I"ve worked as a GP receptionist under a year and I"m already burnt out

What I"m truly thinking: the doctor"s receptionist

You wonder why I’m grumpy? It’s because I’m hugely stressed and poorly paid. It stinks that I’m on £14,000 a year, spending all day fending off a stampede of patients from the GPs, who are paid 10 times as much as me. There are 5,000 patients on our books, and it feels as if they all have our number on speed dial.

On an average day I deal with hundreds of anxious or irritable people, demanding an appointment when it’s not necessary, including at least 10 terrified new mums convinced their baby has meningitis (it’s infantile eczema/the sniffles). If I gave everyone an appointment, the doctors would never get to go home. And I know it’s unpleasant to have to describe your symptoms, but without them I can’t assess how urgent it is. You should see what’s wrong with some people – you wouldn’t sit next to them if you knew.

When a patient comes out clutching a prescription, I get the triumphant look that makes me annoyed. They feel they’ve proved me wrong, that they really are ill, but I find it hard to care about a bladder infection. People ask why it can’t be an automated system, but sometimes personal service is what is needed. A computer couldn’t tell Mrs Clarke she shouldn’t wait all night on the floor after a fall to call us in the morning, or reassure Mr Wallis that his blood test is normal. It’s the old dears that make my job worthwhile. I just wish more people were like them.

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What I"m truly thinking: the doctor"s receptionist