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Darenth Valley Hospital

edited January 2011 in Not Sports Related
just wanted to say what a shocking place

went today to see a consultant as ive torn my ACL and medial meniscus. appointment was at 9:30.....so arrive nice and early, park up and go to the outpatients ward. 6 women behind a desk in what is like an airport terminal. 'oh you dont check-in here, use the self check-in computer'......so use that, get given a ticket with a number on......to which we sat for hour and 15 mins till it got called out. 'go to red zone'....RED ZONE!!..wtf is this place, Argos mixed with kryptom factor.

Sit in red zone for another 45 mins. 'excuse me, but how long we gonna be waiting?'.....nurse didnt even know the time, she thought it was only twenty to ten. ''ooh is that the time, cor dear'...YES COR DEAR, i been sitting here for what seems like a week!!!...apprently they have a new system but ''its sooo slow' (the consultant himself said that)...whos idea was it to go with this system then!!! even then they didnt have my results from my MRI cos its at a holding centre. glad i went for that then.

looking around the place, i reckon 80% of the patients were over 60. They want a friendly face when they arent well, but instead they have to use technology which most older people despise. then they are actually made into a number, only to be made to wait over hours. is that a way to treat people, surely hospitals should be no1. for people service.

So if you ever get a referral from your doctor make sure its not at Darenth Valley.
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Comments

  • You weren't there for ACL were you Gary...

    Trev has caught up with you this morning I reckon.
  • Known locally as Death Valley.
  • on a positive side, I have never had a problem there at all.
    Both kids born there - no problems, friendly staff, clean and well organised place
    been in A/E there on a few occasions. Again seen promptly, issue dealt with with compassion and common sense
    Father-in-law there after a heart attack, again treated very well nothing but good things to say about the place.
    Various family had appointments with consultants there and never been more than 10-15 minutes later than booked time.
  • Looked after my mum on various occasions in 2010, had no complaints at all. Always found it clean and the nurses I encountered were great.
  • wait till you encounter the 'new system'
  • Touch wood I won't!
  • Get one of the 'great' nurses to do that..
  • [cite]Posted By: ValleyGary[/cite]wait till you encounter the 'new system'

    I will report back on Thursday as son has an appointment there then.
  • I went there a few weeks ago. Popped in to A&E with knee trouble.

    Straight to the lady on reception - she gave me a ticket and sent me off to another ward. Where I sat for about 40 mins and a phone rang constantly.

    Eventually I was called in to see a lady in a wheelchair who was deaf - she was the triage nurse who had to "check me in" and see what was up with me.

    Another half hour passed and I was seen by a very helpful (overly enthusiastic actually) lady who referred me for xrays. I was just about able to walk but they forced me to sit in a wheelchair - sadly I was on my own so had to wait for a porter to cart me off to the xray dept.

    Got checked - carted back to original ward and sent home with a presecrition as long as your arm

    All in all it was not exactly the clearest procedure and was rather confusing to me but I was reasonably happy with the turnaround times
  • no problems whenever I've been there.............had all 3 of my kids born there (albeit between 2003 and 2006) and various bllod testrs and outpatients/A&E visits since then.

    I'd have to say its one of the better hospitals around - built 10 ys ago and so relatively new .............should try the Kent & Sussex (T/wells) if you want old & crumbling !!
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  • Its death valley mate , if you know of any old people who go in there for broken limbs etc , you probably wont see them again.
    more Social services / admin/managers staff numbers than nurses ...........
  • oh it was clean and new, infact walking in was like a shopping centre.

    More a moan about the way patients are treated by the people that run the place. the staff i saw, although unable to tell the time, were friendly enough but even they said the system there is poor. The people in charge are the ones that aint got a clue.

    A&E people expect to wait, but i was an outpatient and had this appointment for over a month. why did they give me a specific time when i wasnt seen for over 2 hours after?!
  • I had my hip replacement done there a year ago no complaints from me.
  • The Lass is a nurse at our local hospital in Kendal and they were the first to trial the new NHS computer system, called Lorenzo, that is meant to bring everything about a patient into one easy to access system - it doesn't work, apparently it is a system they bought for the finance side of the NHS then thought that they could bolt on an operational package. Clinics get cancelled but no one is told, consultants go on holiday but the system forgets this so the patients and the nurses turn up but no doctor, it just goes on and on. The lass got so fed up she stormed into the Chief Execs office to have a go, luckily for him he wasn't there!

    Basically the NHS as we remember it has gone, everything is rationed now and unless you kick up you get minimal cheapest treatment...... I could go on!

    Sorry about that, nothing to do with Darenth but everything to do with the NHS
  • Think what you went through today Gary is small in comparsion to what Trev is feeling now...
  • You took Trev's childhood sweetheart.
  • No complaints from me either...had a few small ops there over past 5/6 years, all ok.
  • But if the hyperchondriacs who don't work didn't block out Doctor's surgeries and A&E depts then the rest of us could use the facilities when required!
  • [cite]Posted By: last_line[/cite]But if the hyperchondriacs who don't work didn't block out Doctor's surgeries and A&E depts then the rest of us could use the facilities when required!
    Quite. I tried to get an appointment this week at my GP (I must go once every 3 years) and was told they were booked up for the next 3 weeks with only "on-the-day" appointments available whatever that means.
  • It's my local hospital and the family has used it for various reasons since it was built.

    2 of my 3 grandkids born there without any problems, daughter's appendicitis diagnosed & dealt with swiftly & efficiently, granddaughter's emergency asthma related admissions also have given no cause for concern/complaint and 90+ parents in law admitted quickly when necessary.

    I'm guessing that DV is no worse, or maybe better than others but am grateful that it is close by with good public transport links and has an A & E Dept .
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  • [cite]Posted By: WSS[/cite]
    [cite]Posted By: last_line[/cite]But if the hyperchondriacs who don't work didn't block out Doctor's surgeries and A&E depts then the rest of us could use the facilities when required!
    Quite. I tried to get an appointment this week at my GP (I must go once every 3 years) and was told they were booked up for the next 3 weeks with only "on-the-day" appointments available whatever that means.

    My missus is a teacher and had to wait over a week to get an appointment at the Dentist at a time when she could actually leave school to get her toothache dealt with (nurofen did well out of us!) - ironically she couldn't get an appointment after 4pm all week, as I quote "those slots are booked for kids to have check ups!!"

    Don't even get me started on the cost of summer hols when you are married to a teacher. And before any parents start to retort, it's a hell of a lot easier to take a child out of a class of 30 for a week than it is for the teacher to clear off on hols!!
  • [quote][cite]I tried to get an appointment this week at my GP (I must go once every 3 years) and was told they were booked up for the next 3 weeks with only "on-the-day" appointments available whatever that means.[/quote]

    Don't know where you live, but most areas have a walk-in-clinic. You walk in, without the need for an appointment and are seen normally within the hour.
    The ones I have delt with at work are very good and keen too
  • Only had one experience with Darenth and it nearly killed my Dad. He went in with massive head pain and was given pain killers and told it was most likely caused by the ONE pint of lager, he'd had 18 hours previously. Within 24 hours of leaving Darenth my Dad had been through Greenwich hospital, who were superb, and had a life saving operation at the Royal Free, on the brain haemorrhage that he had suffered. Despite being told at Greenwich that he might die, even with the operation, my Dad made a full recovery and is thank God still with us today.
  • I get fed up with people knocking Darenth Valley, Sidcup Hospital has shutdown,so they have more patients. I've had 4 operations there, my eldest has had two operations there, the staff were wonderful, the place is clean, no complaints.
    If you are an outpatient at any hospital you are going to wait for a while. Cutbacks and a huge amount of patients are crippling the NHS.
  • One of the reasons why outpatients can have extended waits is that the consultant has been called to A&E to see to an emergency. In this circumstance, we can grin and bear it; but where some faceless bureaucrat has devised a whizzo scheme to save money, which costs patients, and hospital staff, precious time, there should be campaign against it. VG, forget Trevor, go and person the barricades and bring them so their senses.
  • the waiting time is a pain in the arse and is annoying but the thing that wound me up is the ticket and zone shite. Should have seen some of the old girls trying to work out what was goin on. that aint right.
  • [cite]Posted By: ValleyGary[/cite]the waiting time is a pain in the arse and is annoying but the thing that wound me up is the ticket and zone shite. Should have seen some of the old girls trying to work out what was goin on. that aint right.

    Think yourself lucky.

    All Trevor can do now is wait. Wait for sleep so his pain eases slightly.
  • lol i aint ever gonna get a non-trev related reply again am i
  • I heard on the news the other day that a man in darenth valley had 2 dead people on beds beside him, but they didnt remove them because there wasnt enough staff or something (i may have got this wrong, but im pretty sure it was death valley)...

    as they say, "come into the hospital in a metal box, leave in a wooden one"
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