Here is an excerpt from a letter by a person with CF, who was involved in planning the CFAI's campaign highlighting the frustrating experience of waiting for treatment. Sadly the person who wrote it died shortly after, having never left hospital.
"These very words 'sick waiting' came back to haunt me about four weeks ago when I found myself sitting in a hospital waiting room, in considerable pain with a collapsed lung, for six hours. When I finally got inside to A&E, I was left a further two hours before a doctor came near me, and it took a further half hour before I got pain relief for the first time. I spent three days with a collapsed lung, in A&E on a trolley. During transfer to a ward on the third night, the nurse, through lack of training, raised the chest drain onto the bed and promptly collapsed my lung for a second time. That moment's ineptitude caused my pneumothorax to triple in size and sent me rushing into resuss.
"The above experience shows people with CF shouldn't still be waiting to get into A&E, be waiting in A&E for days and have to deal with inadequate training levels. This impressed on me exactly how suitable the term 'sick waiting' actually is. I am sick of the pain I have to go through to get appropriate treatment."