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If you've attended the SGH sleep clinic and/or done a sleep test there, you'll know what I am on about. I just need to vent, see if I can get rid of this anger.
I wrote the never-been-seen Dr Jane Wilkinson because, after four years under her 'care' as Consultant, I am using an APAP as a CPAP at 20cmH2O, no relief except ramp, and I'm still tired during the day - maybe not tired per se, but lacking energy. She wrote back asking me to attend a sleep study - same one she uses for diagnosis of OSA - make a movie, record sound, pulse-oximetry. Not impressed but you have to go along with them.
Denise checked me in last night, brought me a cup of tea and then lights out so she could go home at 10pm. We discussed the bed, of course, marrower than ward beds, apparently, so it fits through the doorway. Foam matress. Clanked, groaned and creaked even before I climbed aboard. Clingy, thin blankets that you might find in a charity shop or a refugee camp. Naturally, the bed was too short for me. Required to wear PJs, maybe to spare someone's blushes but certainly to get tangled with the cheap bedding.
Then comes the lighting. A window high on the wall lets light in from an adjacent room - "so you can find your way to the toilet". Doesn't seem too bright immediately after the room lights are switched off, but give it a few minutes for your eyes to adjust and it seems like one third of daylight.
Give it an hour and it can pry its way under your eyelids. Give it two and it's like staring into headlights. Turn over? Get tangled in the bedding. Turn back? Get even more tangled. And all the while, the light burns relentlessly down and my blood pressure rises. I shouted expletives and made rude gestures at the camera, but to no avail - sleep retreated ever further away.
I gave up at 1am and came home, cursing all the way, cursing as I set up my APAP/CPAP and all the wiring under the bed. Lights out at 2am and I remember nothing till 8am today.
Here are some clues, SGH and Jane Wilkinson - the patient must be asleep for you to study their sleep. Patients will fall asleep and sleep longer/better/deeper in an environment that is condusive to sleep - a comforatable bed, a duvet, a bed-side lamp, DARKNESS.
There is nothing that I couldn't have told Jane Wilkinson that last night's sleep study would have revealed (had I slept at all) - I could even show her pulse-oximetry graphs and reports. But for one thing: assuming she actually exists (I am in the camp that says she doesn't) she doesn't talk to her patients. She doesn't need to know anything about us, our life styles, problems we may be experiencing with our treatment. She's the Consultant and knows best, after all - she knows exactly how to head up a most shambolic, ineffective, time and money wasting clinic that leaves patients frustrated and poorly served.
I'll leave it till Sunday to write Wilkinson and the hospital CEO so I'm calm and more likely to create a co-operative atmosphere. We are at their mercy, after all. I just gotta investigate transferring to a different hospital, though.
Southampton General Hospital Sleep Clinic sucks big time, in my opinion and that of everyone to whom I have spoken.
I wrote the never-been-seen Dr Jane Wilkinson because, after four years under her 'care' as Consultant, I am using an APAP as a CPAP at 20cmH2O, no relief except ramp, and I'm still tired during the day - maybe not tired per se, but lacking energy. She wrote back asking me to attend a sleep study - same one she uses for diagnosis of OSA - make a movie, record sound, pulse-oximetry. Not impressed but you have to go along with them.
Denise checked me in last night, brought me a cup of tea and then lights out so she could go home at 10pm. We discussed the bed, of course, marrower than ward beds, apparently, so it fits through the doorway. Foam matress. Clanked, groaned and creaked even before I climbed aboard. Clingy, thin blankets that you might find in a charity shop or a refugee camp. Naturally, the bed was too short for me. Required to wear PJs, maybe to spare someone's blushes but certainly to get tangled with the cheap bedding.
Then comes the lighting. A window high on the wall lets light in from an adjacent room - "so you can find your way to the toilet". Doesn't seem too bright immediately after the room lights are switched off, but give it a few minutes for your eyes to adjust and it seems like one third of daylight.
Give it an hour and it can pry its way under your eyelids. Give it two and it's like staring into headlights. Turn over? Get tangled in the bedding. Turn back? Get even more tangled. And all the while, the light burns relentlessly down and my blood pressure rises. I shouted expletives and made rude gestures at the camera, but to no avail - sleep retreated ever further away.
I gave up at 1am and came home, cursing all the way, cursing as I set up my APAP/CPAP and all the wiring under the bed. Lights out at 2am and I remember nothing till 8am today.
Here are some clues, SGH and Jane Wilkinson - the patient must be asleep for you to study their sleep. Patients will fall asleep and sleep longer/better/deeper in an environment that is condusive to sleep - a comforatable bed, a duvet, a bed-side lamp, DARKNESS.
There is nothing that I couldn't have told Jane Wilkinson that last night's sleep study would have revealed (had I slept at all) - I could even show her pulse-oximetry graphs and reports. But for one thing: assuming she actually exists (I am in the camp that says she doesn't) she doesn't talk to her patients. She doesn't need to know anything about us, our life styles, problems we may be experiencing with our treatment. She's the Consultant and knows best, after all - she knows exactly how to head up a most shambolic, ineffective, time and money wasting clinic that leaves patients frustrated and poorly served.
I'll leave it till Sunday to write Wilkinson and the hospital CEO so I'm calm and more likely to create a co-operative atmosphere. We are at their mercy, after all. I just gotta investigate transferring to a different hospital, though.
Southampton General Hospital Sleep Clinic sucks big time, in my opinion and that of everyone to whom I have spoken.
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