I had to take my son to our local A & E today following his return from holiday, as his legs, had swollen up to an enormous size, and were told an receptionist that our waiting time, would be at least two hours, and as he was in pain, we waited, and in that time, what really got up my nose, was that the hard working Dr's and Nurses, were over stretched by, what l could only descibe as ' silly ' ailments and total waste of there time, there were some very genuine cases, ie, a man with a swollen ankle, a guy with blood streaming out of his nose, which wouldn't stop, the rest were all walking into the unit, with nothing more than a cut finger, two people with chest pains,that were seen right away for obvious reasons, but it highlighted to me that some of the patients could have contacted NHS Direct or called the out the GP or even waited until the following morning to be seen by the own GP, the strangest thing was, we had a family of five walk in, and there were laughing and joking, and the gut sitting next to me, said, who is the patient, the problem that my son had, was he picked up a bug on holiday and made the muscles in his leg, go solid, and they were surprised he lasted a ten hour flight, l think what the good people of the UK, should do is think long and hard before going to the A & E, contact NHS Direct or your own GP, as you might be causing a problem and have to wait 4 / 5 hours, just to be told, take a paracetomol
