"Emergency Room Triage"

Having experienced severe and acute stomach pains the day and night before, I called the Health Direct line to see whether I should go to the Emergency Room to be seen by a doctor.  I was advised by the Nurse Clinician that I should receive a call back from a Doctor, as there may not be a need to present at the hospital.

An on-call doctor from Health Direct called me back a couple of minutes later, and after getting me to describe my symptoms and do a rebound test on myself, they recommended that I go straight to the ER as they suspected that I had appendicitis and that there was a need to go straight to the ED as there was a need to exclude appendicitis.

When I presented at the ED triage, I showed the clinician the text message I received from Health Direct and informed them verbally that the Doctor I spoke to on the phone suspected appendicitis.  The clinician asked various questions, including a pain rating scale at that point in time.  I replied that I was in no pain, as the pain was coming and going but when it was present it was in the region of my appendix.  The clinician then took all my obs then gave me a specimen jar to get a urine sample to exclude some things.  

I tried to give the clinician the jar with urine sample through the triage window, but they informed me that they would come and collect it from me while I was sitting in the waiting area.  This never happened and I ended up giving it to the doctor when I was called in. 

My concern throughout the whole process was that despite a Health Direct doctor suspecting that I had appendicitis, I was triaged by a clinician and, I believe, given a low grading as I was the last person to be seen in the waiting area (in turn).  I do realise that my case was complex as I had very little pain at the time, however, I believe that is often the nature of appendicitis.   Wouldn't it be better to err on the side of caution, rather than prolong a doctor from seeing a patient who was suspected of having a serious and sometimes life-threatening condition?

When I was finally seen, the doctor was very thorough.