I was discriminated against for having bipolar, what should I do?

He was dishonest and came across as untrsutworthy...good for reporting
although i'm not sure if he was discriminating because you have bipolar...

You contacted PALS at the hospital? That's usually a good place to start with a complaint.

I can't see any other reason for doing that. I mean why else treat me like I'm some sort of idiot? Because as far as I'm aware it's illegal to do so unless you have reason to believe the person is incompetant and the ONLY way I can see that he would possibly have reason to believe that is inadequate knowledge about bipolar..

To be fair, if he didn't give you meds and the placebo worked, he was probably just telling your mum about it so she wouldn't worry as he couldn't find anything wrong with you.

He didn't discriminate against you at all. Although I would probably report him for breach of confidentiality. That's the only thing he did wrong.

Edit: Actually, thinking about it, he probably saw you have Bi-Polar after he couldn't hear anything wrong with your chest and told your mother who he assumed was your carer, so she wouldn't worry. Which is all up and up, so really, he didn't do anything wrong. Other than assume your mum was your carer, I guess.

1) He lied to me about what drugs he gave me

2) He breached my confidentiality, and consent

3) He assumed because I had bipolar, I was some sort of idiot

4) He didn't treat a panic attack appropriately

So yeah he did do something wrong

1. He had to, so he could diagnose you. He couldn't find anything wrong when he listened to your chest so had to prove there was nothing wrong by giving you a placebo. Which he was correct to do.

2. The guy is an idiot for telling your mother, he could of thought it was your carer, but still, he shouldn't of done that.

3. No, no he didn't. Do you not get how a placebo works?

4. Sounds to be that by the time you had left you weren't panicking and were feeling fine. He may have not treated it conventionally, but nonetheless he treated it.

I've put a complaint in to the GMC.

So what happened was I was on a train with my mum, and all of a sudden, I couldn't breathe. My hands went tingly and I felt like I was going to die. I just couldn't breathe at all It was horrible I assumed I was having an asthma attack, my inhaler didn't work and so I went to A&E. Usually, they give me a neb. Anyway, got there, saw a doctor. They did my sats, and mine were LOW. 90%. If anyone goes under 96, they're supposed to be given oxygen. Anyway, the doctor listened to my chest, and then asked me what other medication I was taking. I said citalopram. They started exchanging weird looks.

Then he comes back and says he'll give me a salbutamol neb. I'm there for about an hour with this neb, but it doesn't feel right. It keeps making my nose run and my hands aren't shaking, which they normally do. I keep telling people I feel very ill but no one listens.

Then when the neb is finished, I feel better and so he says I can go. But before I leave, he calls my mum. WITHOUT me.

She then tells me that he said "I didn't give her a salbutamol neb. It's just saline. I couldn't hear anything on her chest I don't believe her. What exactly is going on?" My mum was really shocked, and he then said "I don't know what you're going to tell her" She said "I'm going to tell her what you've said" and he said "Well you could tell her I was asking about meds" What the ****, you've just breached confidentiality, consent and from what I can see, disability disrimination.

What other reason would he have for talking to my mum and not me and treating me like some sort of numpty? I'm 19, so not underage, he had no reason to do that. Both me and my mum assume it as because I have bipolar, and he just assumed I was some sort of melodramatic idiot.

So my problem with this is

1) WHY not just tell me you can't hear anything? I'm pretty sure I had a panic attack and not an asthma attack, but HE'S the doctor and should have found out

2) WHY lie about giving me a neb? Why not just say "It doesn't sound like an asthma attack, I'll try you with some saline"

3) WHY talk to my mum and not me

I'm so pissed off about this. Also I'm annoyed with the way a panic attack was treated. They're horrible and not something to be humiliated.

I'm sorry you've had a difficult time in A&E and feel you weren't treated with dignity. I'm afraid without discussion with the doctor in question and with yourself bar an internet forum its very difficult to comment on what went on and the reasons why this happened to you.

I wouldn't however go straight to the GMC, as I think the most appropriate action would be go to PALS in the hospital to look into this issue further, and perhaps give you the opportunity to discuss what happened with a member of the medical team/the doctor who treated you. There's a very fine line with regards to confidentiality when you are being seen in the presence of a friend or relative and I think this needs to be explored further.

Good luck with it and I hope you feel better now.

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1) No, he did not. He could have said "This doesn't sound like an asthma attack to me. Do you have anything else that might be causing it?" It is NOT ethical to give people placebos. Or he should have asked me questions in order to find out what it was. He should be open and honest. Not assume I'm making it up

2) Assuming because I have bipolar I'm not capable, which is wrong

3) Yes he did.

4) That's not the correct way to handle a panic attack. It's humiliating and discriminatory

Look, assuming your mother was a carer was wrong, but to be honest, you sound petty because he couldn't find anything and then proved there was nothing wrong but you having a panic attack. He cured you when you thought it was something else entirely.

I think he did a good job and to be honest, you have no idea what his experiences with bi-polar people are like. Perhaps he has come across violent people with it before and found that the only way to help properly was doing it the he was doing. You have no idea.

You're mad because he treated you effectively, when perhaps more "ethical" doctors would of spent hours and hours looking for signs of an asthma attack you didn't have. Just thank the doctor for treating you and move on, jeez.

Try having just had the **** kicked out of you, drifting in and out of consciousness, lying on a gurney for 4 hours without so much as a nurse coming over to talk to you, then bitch about how A&E sucks because you got treated.

I'm petty because I want to be treated like a human being? Do you have a mental health problem? Do you have any idea what it's like to be discriminated against and treated like a ****ing idiot for it? No? I suggest you shut up.

How you can think it's okay to lie to a patient and treat them like this sickens me because I have mental health problems that means it's okay to disregard basic rights and dignity. Also, "because he found there was nothing wrong with you" so a panic attack is nothing? Just further showing your disgusting attitude to this kind of thing. A more ethical doctor wouldn't have taken hours, they'd have recognised a panic attack, told me about it, monitered me for 10 minutes and then let me go. It's not that ****ing difficult

You're not supposed to judge people like that. What if his only experience with black people was with criminals, would it be okay to treat every black person he meets as a criminal? Using your logic

Seriously how is this okay

I'm petty because I want to be treated like a human being? Do you have a mental health problem? Do you have any idea what it's like to be discriminated against and treated like a ****ing idiot for it? No? I suggest you shut up.

How you can think it's okay to lie to a patient and treat them like this sickens me because I have mental health problems that means it's okay to disregard basic rights and dignity. Also, "because he found there was nothing wrong with you" so a panic attack is nothing? Just further showing your disgusting attitude to this kind of thing. A more ethical doctor wouldn't have taken hours, they'd have recognised a panic attack, told me about it, monitered me for 10 minutes and then let me go. It's not that ****ing difficult

You're not supposed to judge people like that. What if his only experience with black people was with criminals, would it be okay to treat every black person he meets as a criminal? Using your logi

how is this okay

Just because you have bi-polar doesn't mean you should be treated better than anyone else in A&E, that would be discrimination, I think you'll find

Look, I'm just theorizing, and I think my theory is better than "a doctor was not nice to me because I have bi-polar. Wah Wah". He may not have handled it correctly, but he handled it. This, right here is why good people hate the entitled PC stuff. So, because someone is different they should get treated better than anyone else? If a drunk guy comes in, so he be treated worse because he is a drunk? Of course not.

Actually, using my logic, that's already a thing. The police use it all the time. If a Ned is walking down the street and a guy in a suit is walking behind him, 9 times out of 10 the police will stop the ned and search him, while letting the guy in the suit keeping going, regardless of the actual criminal was. It's called profiling, and it was a guess that the doctor had bad experiences with bi-polar, just to highlight how you don't know.

Look, you were treated and cured. He didn't treat you like a queen, but he cured you. Get off his arse and let a doctor help people instead of being selfish.

She has a point though, what the doctor did was unethical and just because it supposedly worked for her at the end of the day doesn't mean it would for his next patient. And she did say that she was still feeling unwell after being given the placebo.

She's not being selfish at all. If a doctor lied to you about your medication and then called your parent up to tell them they don't believe you, you would be pretty mad about it too.

She said she was unwell during the placebo, but was feeling fine afterwards. I get that it doesn't work for everyone, but as a doctor, he probably has a good idea, no?

By the by, I'm just guessing that's what the doc did, because it makes more sense, at least from a logical standpoint that a random doctor treating everyone with bi-polar as idiots.

I'd be a bit mad about it, but complaints like that can ruin a doctor's practice can't it? Or at least suspend it until it's sorted of. I'm not 100% on policy, but I'd figure that's what they would do. Plus with the NHS being absurdly understaffed, is it not better to just let a doctor do his job and help people?