Complaining about doctors / treatment

sirboz

I have no idea if its worth me doing anything about this or if is the right place to ask ................ but

I had a medical problem and went to a private hospital, I was back and forth for a year having 3/4 x-rays 6 MRI scans , numerous consultant appointments £140 per go !! I went to 3 different consultants and finally had an operation , the problem was never cured , then I was referred to yet another consultant at which point I virtually gave up. Out of frustration and on a recommendation I went a local chiropractor who thought she knew the problem within the first appointment and started treatment straight away, I have been going back at various intervals for treatment for 3-4 months and my problem is 90% improved . I wrote to the hospital to see what they thought , explaing I had paid about £4000 in various fees (some covered by insurance) for nothing and yet a local chiropractor found the problem virtually straight away and has virtually cured my problem in a few months, I only pay her £30 per visit and so far a total of about £400

The reply I received was that the consultants had submited reports to the director and they were happy with the courses of treatment they followed , if i wanted to take it further I should contact the general medical council and she kindly gave me the address .

Im a bit fed up about the situtation, anyone any experience of complaining ti the GMC ? just wondering if its worth taking it any further ??

I assume I would be wasting my time ?

Emmysmum_2

Well, let me put it this way. I was high risk in pregnancy, ended up in hopsital 10 days before the birth as I had an infectionand baby was unresponsive and erratic heart beat. No paed showed up to check him over. he was not feeding properly, yet the hospital insisted he was great, and sent us home. he never fed well at home, and he lost so much weight he became a living skeleton. GP and hV useless. When he was so thin he looked like an appeal poster for huminatarian aid (hosital kept referring me back to GP), I at last had my rantings listened to and got a referral to a specialist. he had multiple problems stemming from severe tongue tie, GERD, and a severe weakness down his left side, with suspected prenatal stroke or other cause of neurological trauma. Specialist milks were prescribed by the hospital and feeding tubes given as well as precriptions for meds to control his Gerd. Hospital said my son was nearly dead....he had at that point mere days to live thanks to all concerned.

So I filed a complaint. I filed another one when the GP repeatedly failed to renew my abby's milk and meds p[rescriptions and I had to travel hours on teh bus to go to the hospital for emergency precriptions from his paed due to the multi GP practice's incompetance. I changed surgeries and hospitals (we are on county line) and not had trouble since, but....what happneed with my official complaints?

My son did not actually die, so i got the letter saying it was being looked inot, followed by...the personnel involved have been reminded of best practice codes and will strive to improve their performanceandhave a nice day basically. So waste of time. Unless dead or so impaired you sue for money to help cover living costs etc, they don't give a toss. Or at least N. Staffs doesn't.

Astaroth

Having spent 3 years at med school (didnt go on to become a doctor) I have to say that the diagnosis of a condition can be exceptionally difficult. At the same time as doctors go higher up the ranks they become more and more specialist. Almost one of the issues though is that whilst we would accept that not all "scientists" know everything about chemistry, biology, physics etc we do still expect a doctor to know everything about everything even though there is a hell of a lot about medicine and the human biology that even specialist scientists dont know (and I will always remember when I was a med student being told that I didnt need to understand something further by my physiology professor because "your only going to be a doctor")

Whilst I accept that doctors do have a very difficult job and accept their limitations there are honest "mistakes" that occur and there are those caused by negligence and obviously you need to get to the bottom of it.

A chiropractor is different to a doctor just as a sparky is different to an electrical engineer and whilst one is considered more highly qualified than the other if the fuse is blowing every time you turn on your lights a sparky is probably a much more suitable person to call on.

The only experience I have with the GEMC etc is after a presentation from the Medical Defence Union about the importance of getting liability cover from them and that they gave it free to med students - to be honest though I only went for the free dictionary

Voyager2002

I would suggest talking to your insurance company. They have paid for some of your (inappropriate and unneccessary) treatment, and presumably they have a legal department with expertise in these matters. If anyone can get anywhere, they can.

As the other tragic posts demonstrate, an individual is helpless in the face of the medical establishment.

moonrakerz

I'm not sure where a complaint would get you. I get the impression that many of these "professional" bodies are run by the members for the members.

They only seem to do anything when it's a really big case and they get a lot of media attention.