9:10pm Friday 3rd September 2010
By Katie Bond
MUM-OF-FIVE Michelle Darhali has spoken of the traumatic and stressful ordeal she underwent at the Great Western Hospital when she was left bleeding heavily from her stomach for a distressing 12 hours.
Michelle, 48, of Queens Avenue in Highworth, went in to hospital for day surgery to remove her gall-bladder on August 12, but was told she would have to stay on Beech ward for another two days.
But on the Saturday morning, Michelle woke at 8am to find she was bleeding from her stomach. After calling the nurse at 8.30am, she was told not to worry because a doctor would be visiting shortly.
“I was told to put pressure on my stomach with a towel to ease the bleeding until the doctor arrived, which just didn’t seem right,” Michelle said.
“The dressing was getting redder and redder with blood and I was starting to panic.
“If I had stood up blood would have dripped all over the floor.
“A doctor came round in the morning and saw to another patient on the ward then disappeared. When I asked what was going on, the nurses said they had to rush off for an emergency but they would come back, so not to worry.”
By the time Michelle’s family visited at 6pm that day, she had still not been seen by a doctor and the bleeding had still not stopped.
She said: “My family were really scared, we just didn’t know what was going on, and by this time I was worried I might bleed to death or something. I asked the nurses if I could take myself down to the emergency unit and see a doctor straight away but they said they couldn’t allow me to do that because I was an in-patient.”
When Michelle’s family left at around 8pm that night, they were told a doctor would be round to see her within the hour.
“My son called me when he got home and I was still bleeding, everyone was really scared,” she said.
“I sat on my bed in a real panic and I was shaking. I didn’t know what was causing the bleeding and I was too scared to walk to the nurse’s station in case I collapsed from the bleeding.”
Michelle was eventually seen by a registry nurse at 10pm that night. She was suffering from a leaky blood vessel which would have continued to leak all night had she not been seen.
“I could see the blood pumping out of my body, it was horrible,” she said. “I didn’t want a local anaesthetic for the stitches to be taken out so it was very painful, but I had been through so much.
“I just don’t understand why there were no doctors available to see me – this is a hospital that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I am disgusted.”
Carol Black, matron for planned care, said: “We are unable to comment on individual cases. In general, it is usual for patients to experience some blood loss after an operation.
“Our nursing staff regularly check and observe patients to ensure they are comfortable and our medical team review patients based on priority to ensure they are ready for discharge.
“All our staff take pride in providing excellent patient care and we are sorry if Ms Darhali is unhappy with her treatment.
“We encourage her to contact our Patient Advice and Liaison team who will look into her concerns in more detail.”
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