"Poor Abortion Care"

I arrived for my 9 am appointment and at 09:20 I went to ask the nurse when I would be seen. The nurse told me they had not forgotten about me and would be there soon. There were no other people in the waiting room, and my name was the only one on the board as a patient. The nurse gestured with their head for me to follow them and walked off before I could stand or get my bag to follow.

The nurse stood down the corridor and when I left the waiting room and pointed to a room and walked away. I went into the clinic where I waited for another 15 minutes. When the nurse came in to discuss my termination of pregnancy, they were cold and non empathetic. There was no consideration for my feelings. As we were discussing the disposal of tissue, and consent forms, another nurse walked in. The nurse did apologise but it felt invasive.

I was shown to my room where the nurse did a very poor job at explaining to me what would happen. They did not appear comfortable talking about abortion and would not speak about the process, saying - when you, you know, pass. They used hand gestures to indicate things.

I informed the nurse I do not take injections and that this had been discussed in my consultation four days prior, where I was told I would be written up for oromorph instead of injection. The nurse said it depends on my pain threshold as to whether I would need this and I informed them that I have a very very low pain threshold. I asked for an anti-sickness and was told that I could have it when I felt sick.

After thirty minutes of taking the medication that induces the termination, I asked for anti-sickness and pain relief. The nurse informed me the anti-sickness was injection despite me asking for oral. The nurse gave me paracetamol despite me crying in pain. I was sick and threw up the paracetamol. My partner advocated for me to have codeine and chased the anti-sickness for over 2 hours whilst I lay sobbing and crying in pain.

The nurse showed no empathy or consideration despite me telling them about my low pain threshold. When I asked for more pain relief the nurse told me it wasn't due, when I asked about oromorph they told me the doctor had not prescribed it. I was crying in pain and the nurse's attitude made me feel very judged.

After I passed the fetus the nurse chose this time to ask me about contraception, which was incredibly insensitive. Throughout the day my partner had to continue advocating for pain relief and anti-sickness - I never got the anti-sickness.

I asked them to remove the liners with bodily fluids/matter in and it was left there for the morning until the afternoon staff came to take it.

When I knew I was due pain relief I pressed my call bell and was told that all nurses were in handover and I couldn't have any. When I was eventually told I could go home the member of staff was bright and cheerful and did not seem to understand how insensitive their tone was after going through such a traumatic procedure.

I left without anyone seeing me, my physical obs were not completed before I left and I wasn't given a prescription for pain relief.

I will never, ever forget how cold, rude, dismissive and non empathetic one of the nurses was and how as a team they didn't show any empathy other than one young HCA. I understand how difficult their jobs are but a lack of consideration or empathy for your patient is absolutely inexcusable. The nurse didn't even want to come in the room, they stood in the doorway with their hand on the top of the door, lingering like they couldn't be bothered to come in and see me. They didn't want to engage with me and it felt to me like they didn't care.