Dear Sir,

I am a mother and grandmother, I am also 61 years old. I have suffered with sickle cell all my life. I also visit the emergency department of King Edward VII Memorial Hospital regularly when having acute chronic pains.

These pains are very unbearable. The past few months I have had to go through the ER, with my sisters and daughter having to take me there.

I was told that I have to wait for pain medication to come from the maternity ward down to emergency for it to be given to me. The wait was three, four and five hours to be given that medication.

The hospital used to have it in the emergency department. Why have they moved it to the maternity ward? Where and why does it take so long for the drug to come from that floor?

To be crying and be in so much pain, having to wait four to five hours to be given the medication is unacceptable.

I know that sometimes you want to take matters out on the doctors and nurses, but they are only doing their jobs. I asked how can the directors of the hospital put that structure on their doctors and nurses and expect them to treat patients when they come through the emergency department.

This is the only hospital we have in Bermuda. To be Bermudian born and raised here to be treated like this is unprofessional, unacceptable and not right. I am a patient that is allergic to quite a lot of drugs. I also feel that there are more people just like myself and other patients that suffer all kinds of pains that need this drug, pethidine.

Why are people being treated like this? Does the Premier, David Burt, know how people in Bermuda are being treated in this one and only hospital in Bermuda?

I thought that when they built this big, unnecessarily spacious hospital that we would get treated better, but we are being treated ten times worse — to wait three, four, five hours just for this pain medication to come from the maternity ward, and each time you need a dose, they have to call the maternity ward for it and wait again.

I am very tired of being treated like this every time I go to the emergency department.

I do feel for the doctors and nurses working under those conditions; some of them can be very nasty, but I know some of them are very nice and feel for the patients.

So I ask Bermuda, don’t we need to be treated better in our own hospital and country? Yes, I have made several calls to the patient advocate manager, Yukio Swan, to try to get a meeting with the director, but have not received any phone call or letter.

So from whom and where are we to get help? I will keep complaining until we see change. Sick and tired and angry.

Mr Burt, directors and managers of the hospital, if it were one of your family members, would you allow them to be treated like this, having to witness them being in pain for so long? I wonder.

All I am saying is fix the problem. We as Bermudians should not have to be treated like this or any other kind of nasty way. Fix it.

JUANITA ADAMS

Hamilton