Thanks, Terry especially, some of what is suggested is done.
Some points though. We were with the administrator outside the surgeon's office, the secretary's room in fact. My 'big' file was there and the lady we went to task with (from the director's department) only had to reach down to get it. Indeed, were we less honest we could have slipped it into our big blue IKEA bag beside it then made a fuss and really got the hospital into trouble.
Following Susan's advice, we have already obtained copies of things I did not receive and paid for them when we found them in the dossier at the hospital. The problem with the first op is that I was delivered in by ambulance sedated, dealt with by 'urgence' people and then went for the op. By then I was well and truly dopey. I signed something, but I remember not what for obvious reasons. Now we were told yesterday that I was given a local and not opened up! Ridiculous because as drugged up as I was, my wife turned up to see me in the afternoon once I had come round and I was full of surgical staples down the front of my shoulder. The complication is going in as an emergency where formalities do get jumbled, overlooked and so on of necessity. So yes, you are right, but...
Mark, my Swiss wife's French is word perfect having spent more than half her life in the Francophone world. I have had a knowledge of the lingo since 1960, including my first OH being a French national who barely spoke English - so not as good as once was but pretty good, so not in the equation there. As for threatening with police, actually legally it is impossible to place a complaint against necessary emergency treatment. We also know the administrator is not herself lying but simply sticking to what she knows, indeed she has already recovered some of the held back x-rays on her own initiative and probably believes us but is powerless. We are not compensation chasing, but when I saw a sports specialist for shoulder reconstruction he said he would require ALL documents, x-rays and so on to see every single thing that happened from my first moment at the hospital. His advice is along the lines of looking to see whether they did right or wrong and what influence that had in the chain of events if we return to him. No docs, etc, I can forget him. I would prefer to have that option open.
Zoe, close. They once misspelled my surname, so that two files suddenly existed. As a result we have already had the administrator searching for Mr Brian and all other permutations.
But, like the answers coming out in the women's health issue, this is already fruitful. Thanks people, but keep it coming.