Spicey Pineapple

Hospital system let down

Yesterday my little sister had a minor surgery performed on her and the procedure took place at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, she was asked to go in at 6:30 am and they did not take her into theatre until 10 am, the doctors estimated that surgery would take approximately 1.25 hours plus an additional half hour in the recovery room, so by 12 everything should be fine. 1 pm rolled around and still no word about if the opp was finished or if something had gone wrong, my parents enquired with a nurse to see what was happening, she couldn’t give her an answer, and my sister still wasn’t in the recovery room, so naturally my parents started to worry, at 1:30 still no word, again they enquired and again got no answers. At 1:45 they asked again, still nothing, mum wasn’t happy, so dad thought instead of sitting around they’d walk down to the recovery ward and try and get some answers directly, they walked around and waited and it wasn’t till 2:00 that she got out of the recovery room and mum and dad only knew this cause they saw her being wheeled into the rest room of the hospital. Not only did this happen but also my mum and dad weren’t allowed to stay with her for more then a few minutes even though Dani begged them to stick around, the nurse said no, visiting time wasn’t on till 6 pm. Mum wanted to check in on her after I had because it had been a few hours since she had seen her last and just wanted to see if everything went well surgery wise and if Dani needed anything, again the nurse kicked her out, mum was pissed! More time passed as we waited to see Dani again, and in the meantime mum asked all the nurses to see if the surgery had gone well and a few other questions, no one could give her answers, it seemed like no one had given a damn about informing the distressed loved ones of the people in the hospital. It wasn’t only us either; a man didn’t even get informed that his wife was okay after her surgery until 7 pm. Not only this but all patients that stayed over night were being kicked out by 7 am because the day surgery ward closed on the weekend at 9 am, patients cant even recover and they are already being kicked out the door. It honestly makes me sick how disgraceful this is, I know that other people have it worse, I know, and I know that it gets worse the further out you are in the country, but it shouldn’t happen anywhere at all, family members should be informed and someone should have been at least able to check on Dani considering that she is technically still a minor. Anyone else have any complaints about the public hospital system, because I know I do.

posted by spicey pineapple @ 10:20 am