OK...NHS vs Health system in Italy...

So.... after 'waxing lyrical' about the relative merits of the NHS and the Italina system favouring the care we get here in Italy clearly spoke too soon.
Both my wife and I have used the system here for several years and found it to be excellent well equipped, caring staff, relatively short waiting times- but yesterday we found the 'achilles heel'.

Whilst preparing for our house sitters visit whilst we come to England for Xmas, I was cleaning the electric slicer we use for salami, pancetta, prosciutto and like an idiot and right at the end I forgot to close the thickness adjuster whilst drying the the moving blade and nearly severed my middle finger . My wife drove me to the Pronto Soccorso at the local hospital (30 minutes) and arrived at 3:30pm and was 'Triaged' dressing to cover it. Not desperately busy but virtually no doctors around. End result...all emergenyc arrivals via ambulance and all children were (rightly) prioritised meaning the dozen or so waiting post triage kept getting pushed back. I was the only one with a visible wound.
I was the last calledt 2:45 AM!! To ad insult to injury, the normally caring staff were clearly tired and overworked and the male nurse basically ripped the temporary dressing off (nearly taking off the fingertip skin and nail which was only held on by a about a quarter of the circumference. He then squeezed, prodded and pulled at the skin and poured two bottles of something brown over it (presumably antiseptic) saying "this will burn". He was expecting a relatively small cut and was somewhat taken aback at the severity of the wound so called the the dottoressa who then came and they had a conflab over what to do... She determined a few stitches were needed whilst he continued to pull and prod he skin back into place. At this point I was expecting some sort of numbing injection but no!! He said...this will hurt!! (no sh*t Sherlock) as she proceeded to stich the wound.
To add insult to injury at one point when I yelled as the 4th stitch was applied my wife laughed and said..."You should try childbirth!" and "I bet you don't do that again" ! Thanks love!!
Apparently, overall, the hospital has a good reputation and excellent service (which we can vouch for, but the A&E is an absolute mess ..too small for the size of the catchment area and chronically understaffed (which we can now also vouch for)
My problem now is that I must get my stitches removed after 1o days which coincides with our last full day in UK so my daughter in now trying to sort out via her doctor for me to attend Montague hospital as a visiting holiday patient (hopefully without the 11 hour wait)

Happy Christmas everyone!

 

A painful story in every way!

 

I'm wincing. At least it wasn't your co ck you nearly sliced off.

 

Take the stitches out yourself it's a pretty simple procedure. Might hurt a bit though.

 

Funnily enough, I did that.myself when I was a teenager. Cut.my finger badly whilst in Wakefield and had it stitched at the local hospital and was told to pop back in 10 days to have the 4 stitches taken out. I couldnt be arsed to catch 3.buses and a long walk so snipped them with a small pair of pointy scissors and pulled them out with my fingers. No different to a nurse doing it.

 

When I had a biopsy taken from the inside of my colon. They couldn't stitch me up so they just stuck a paper bung up my bum. When I awoke I thought what's this wedged up my crack. I pulled it out and when the nurse came to check on me she told me off saying I could have done myself some damage.

 

Juts to add... the Corridors had several occupied beds and several treatment bays were dark but with sleeping patients accompanied by a relative or two presumably all waiiting for admmision to relevant wards in the morning.
Also discovered there was only ONE doctor on duty for the whole of A&E after 9pm. No wonder we had such a long wait and she was not in the best of moods. She also had to complete and sign off the discharge forms for each patient. No wonder the wait was so long. Bear in mind Macerata where ths hospital is located is the regional capital city!!.....ONE doctor!!!

 

I had similar thing with blender blade last year - took a big chunk out of my thumb - I went to the walk-in centre in Wakefield rather than A&E - only waited about 40 minutes.
A&E waiting time for a doctor at Pinderfields is regularly 9 hours these days.....I would advise anyone who isn't dying to go to Ponty or Dewsbury and avoid Pinderfields, you'll get seen in under 2 hours generally.

 

Fine everyone a quid for the mis-use of 'whilst' & the NHS wouldn't be in so much trouble..
Get well soon, Tekky finger..

 

Doh! I thought the first "whilst"in the sentence was OK as a preposition ..e.g. "In preparing..."whilst preparing". The second one WAS wrong as well as being clumsy, using it twice in a short sentence . In my defence I wrote the diatribe having had 3 hours of fitful sleep and in some discomfort from the pounding my finger had in the wee small hours.
It doesn't provide an excuse for the usual drivel post though

 

Wait till you get back to 'la dolce vita' instead of adding to the NHS workload.