We went to the "eye casualty" yesterday coz the missus has some ulcers on her eye. She's immune suppressed coz of the double lung transplant. The ulcers haven't been healing and is causing MAJOR discomfort. This started 4 weeks ago. She tried every avenue outside of the hospital before ending up there in an attempt to get it finally sorted.
So here we are in eye casualty expecting others with various degrees of eye injuries, but no, there was one chick who had HAD conjunctivitis. It was gone, she had swabs taken of her eye only to be told all foreign bugs were gone. Uh, couldn't your Doc have done that via pathology?. There were just eye tests. EYE. TESTS. WTF is an Optometrist for??.
THEN there's a staff, and the triage. Triage was non-existent. You'd expect to hear, "You can get your eyes tested at any Optometrist at any shopping center"....but no, you heard, "Your Medicare card thanks...". That's when the penny dropped. It is all about making money, not patient care.
So anyway, this is the card we've all been handed, so let's get on with the job. The problem with that is they do ONE patient at a time. We got there at about 9am. She was seen ONCE by the Doc in 3 hours. there was maybe 5 people in front of us. FIVE PEOPLE in 3 hours. WTF???.
What ever happened to nurses doing the ground work, thinking for themselves on the basics, and then the Doc coming round making the decisions on the pre-prepared scans and shit?. Fuck me, if anyone else functioned at that level of efficiency FKN NOTHING would get done ... EVAAAAR.
You'd need to ring ahead at Maccas one week in advance.
So we saw the initial Doc by midday and he referred her on to a cornea specialist that just happened to have his clinic starting at 1:30pm. WOOT. We went and got lunch and came back to be greeted by at least 40 others. We waited till about 3:30 because she needed a space to appear. By 3:30 there were still 30 odd people waiting and they closed at 4pm.
Regarding her health, we didn't get ONE STEP forward in six and a half hours. The first Doc was merely a prelim consultation to see what was wrong.
End rant.
Good thing is wasn't detacted retinas. By the time you got to see anyone you'd be blind. No fixing that when it goes to far and there is a very limited time frame for the fixing.
ReplyDeleteGot to love Queensland Health. It's great. Just don't get sick. Ever.
In the end she's heading back to the Charlie to her transplant team to see if they can nut something out. Their idea.
ReplyDeleteIts not just QH, the whole systems the same. In Broome if you're sick, can take 2 or 3 days to get a docs appt. So, in the case of sick kids etc, many just have to take em to the hospital. Where i cannot remember ever having to wait less than 6 hours or more for a 5 minute consult.
ReplyDeleteBS in this day and age imho.
ps Hope the missus is better soon!
ReplyDeleteThanks mate, she's cranky at the best of times, this is merely an excuse. ;o)
ReplyDeleteThat's gonna get me in trouble. lol
I had a SEVERE reaction to dye once, sat in a hospital for four hours, swollen, no breathing, itchy, queezy, before a nurse even saw me. There was three people infront of me.
ReplyDeleteIt's insanity.
ReplyDeleteI notice a chick had a baby on the side of a road just recently coz she was sent home.
Well here's hoping the Fed's attempt for change will work ... anyone else want to chip in for GC's scratchie.
ReplyDelete