Health officials have apologised to a patient left screaming on the waiting room floor of an Australian hospital’s emergency department with what turned to be a kidney stone.
Melanie Tracey-Bower was in agony and she said the pain was so bad that she lost hearing.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Woman with painful kidney stone waits almost two hours in Aussie ED.
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“I’ve been through childbirth. It was probably on par,” Tracey-Bower told 7NEWS of her almost two-hour wait.
She left home at 11.30am for the 14-minute drive to Logan Hospital, south of Brisbane.
Forty-five minutes after arriving, she was seen by a triage nurse just after 12.30pm.
“I screamed out to them. I asked them why they weren’t helping me,” she said.
“I told them that I’ve been waiting another hour, I haven’t even been put through the system yet and then I got told that I was being abusive.”
Melanie Tracey-Bower was in agony waiting for treatment. Credit: 7NEWS The cause of the immense pain was a 6 mm kidney stone. Credit: 7NEWS She was asked to wait once more.
“I’m now on the floor of the emergency department, I’m screaming, I’m crying, I’m shaking, I’m losing hearing in my right ear,” she said.
“I’ve got pins and needles in my hands, my chest and my face.”
She thought of calling an ambulance and waited another hour before a security guard spoke up.
The cause of the immense pain was a 6 mm kidney stone.
“We extend our sincere apologies to the patient for any distress experienced,” Logan and Beaudesert Health Service executive director Anne Coccetti said.
Health officials have apologised. Credit: 7NEWS Close to 30,000 patients filtered through Logan’s emergency department between April and June, with 67 per cent seen within recommended times.
Tracey-Bower lodged a complaint and a review is underway.
“If something’s not done, someone’s really, really going to get hurt,” she said.