vifferman

...or five, if you count both hospitals, and count my room in Mercy as a ward.
While the goodly St John's Ambulance people were in transit from wherever, my wife was kept busy checking my pulse, giving me aspirin to chew, and otherwise following instructions/answering questions from the person inside the phone. However, the ambos arrived with very little delay, and were all efficiency, friendliness, cheerfulness and concern. They bundled both of us into their brand-new vehicle, and while they navigated early-morning traffic, stuck some lines in my hands (well, the one who wasn't driving did).

There's obviously some rivalry in the medical profession, as within minutes of arriving at North Shore Hospital's emergency department, one of the nurses rubbished the lines the St John's paramedic had put in, and replaced them. Subsequent events would prove the paramedics to be far more professional than some of the other people we dealt with.

Despite taking all my discharge notes, scripts, etc. with us, and me telling the ED people I was in atrial fibrillation, there was a bit of pissing around and to-and-froing before the ED people got me stabilised and out of a-fib. They then bunged me in an observation room, where I languished (pretty much unobserved) and without food or drink, for nearly 6 hours, eventually going into a-fib again. By then I quite honestly had just about lost the will to live. The registrar had decided I should have a scan, to see what was causing the a-fib (Hello? Try a combination of the heart objecting to being sliced'n'diced - which the surgeon told me was normal, and would probably happen - and being extremely stressed out, with low blood sugar levels and dehydration). During the 6 or so hours, we'd asked questions, talked to various staff, then watched while seemingly hordes of people shuffled papers, wandered around, talked to one another, and did seemingly little to care for patients.
I eventually got up, walked around a bit, and was going to call my surgeon and/or my cardiologist, because despite us telling the ED staff to contact them, I don't think anyone bothered. Professional rivalry and all that? In the end, I was standing by the door, in a very distressed state, about to call my son to come and rescue us, when the registrar turned up. So I told him how pissed off I was, and how appalling my treatment was. Eventually, a bed was found in the short-stay ward, where I was looked after pretty well, and the a-fib stabilised with some intravenous drugs..
For a few hours.
Then I was wheeled upstairs to Ward 5, where I had to relinquish 'my' brand new bed, and had to hop into an older, crappier one, which I was unable to leave due to the drip in my arm, attached to a pole on the bed as they had no mobile drip stands. I was actually looked after pretty well there too, until they wheeled me off for an uncomfortable (and in my opinion) totally unnecessary ultrasound scan the next morning.
Finally, I was wheeled downstairs (well... via the lifts) into Ward 3, my home for the next 5 or so days.