What a wasted day

[mcrover]

Well after waiting 14 months for my Ablation procedure on my heart to stop the AF I went to hospital today.

Got to the hospital at 93 am to find out that they didnt have all of my paper work that should have been sent from my Cardiologist and that a referal was missing so after a couple of phone calls they did the CT scan while still waiting for the referal as the person in charge of the paper work wasnt there and had put all the paperwork for the day somewhere other than where it was meant to be and no one could find it or get in touch with him to sort it out.

I then got to the admissions section where after about 1 1/2 hour wait they called me into a room to tell me that there was a problem finding me a bed and there may be a bit more of a wait which I wasnt all that worried about as the op wasnt meant to go ahead until around 1:30pm so around the 1pm mark the Dr came out again and told me that it had been canceled due to no beds being available and would be rescheduled at a later date.

Talk about a waste of a day, 2hrs to get to the hossy, 2hrs to get home and 4hrs wasted getting tests and poked and prodded for nothing let alone the days off work and the fact that both my wife and my self have organised to take our anuall leave now and have both had to ring bosses etc to put the anual leave on hold for when ever they get around t taking me in for next time.

I understand the reasoning behind it being canceled but it is extremely annoying but I spose it's better to annoy me and fix someone that is sick and could die rather than take me in and let some poor other bugger die.

Maybe I should have put this in the Rants etc, If the mods think it would be more suited to that area then I would be happy for it to be moved.

[rangieman]

Bad luck mate :cool:

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Can't Agree with you more about how frustrating it can be.

Try telling people day in day out that they cant get off the emergency room bed/trolley because there are no beds in the hospital.

About 1/3 into my now 35 year career the Government's of both Labour and Liberal flavour decided that (with an expanding population) we needed to cut beds/close hospitals "because we were innefficient and only operating at something over 80% average bed occupancy".

Now we are operating at something over 105% bed occupancy and the Labour and Liberal Governments are blaming each other for causing the problem.

There is only so much blood you can get out of a stone.

Diana - RN, RM, Grad Dip (Trauma & Emergency), MN(Critical Care) to list a few.

[googe]

Tipical health system mcrover its just stuffed,it realy gets me wound up at the state its in its disgracfull.When i seen that woman that lost her child the other night on the news that was just so sad :( .after all that now the goverment wont to put in place a local board for every hospital like it was when it was a good health system,and there congraduating themselves for coming up with the idea :twisted: "I understand the reasoning behind it being canceled but it is extremely annoying but I spose it's better to annoy me and fix someone that is sick and could die rather than take me in and let some poor other bugger die." your intittled to the best care there is no matter what the illness,i hope they sort it out for you soon:)


Greg


:burnrubber:

[Frenchie]

Dunno what the government does with all our tax dollars.

The (public service) organisation I work for is teetering on the brink of collapse due to lack of staff and we have been told to shed another 200 in the next 5 years. :angrylock:

[loanrangie]

Its crap, we waited 2 days last Easter to get my 4 yo in to theatre, try spending 2 full days in hospital with a 4 yo that had almost sliced part of her hand off that wasnt given any pain killers at all and was traumatised by some cranky old bitch nurse that had all the tact of a rottwieler. And we had our 2 month old with us as well ! , i tell you if wasnt for the fact that by pure miracle my little girl didnt have to have skin grafts there would have been all hell to pay - especially after being bumped because some junkie tried to kill themselves.

[RonMcGr]

Never mind, they may have been too tired and stuffed it up :)

Sometimes I think things actually flow to a plan. Hang in there.

I have been tring to paint a car for the kid next door. Every thing I touched turned to s**t!
Maybe your Hospital had a similar problem :eek:

Cheers,
Ron

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Diana,
... Had a demented elderly pt climb into bed with another pt. Ended up somehow pinning the other pt underneath and promptly had a heart attack...CPR on one pt with another madly trying to get out from underneath :(

Oops :oops2:

Not that we should get distracted from what was very upsetting and frustrating experience for McRover.

However one night when working on the Acute Coronary Care Unit, about 3am I was really tired and took my break in one of the rooms. Anout 30 minutes later I was awoken from one of those sleeps that you have on nights with the most excrutiating, crushing central chest pain - Oh my god I thought I've got to call one of the other RN's that I need help. I sat up still with the pain in my chest, then as soon as my foot touched the floor no pain, discomfort or anything. Very Very Spooky - I have never slept in a patient bed again.

I wonder how many CCU patients have had a similar experience? You know the ones that describe the pain and there is nothing unusual on the monitor! How many times must we have given them medication Morphine/Anginine etc for that sort of phantom?

Diana

[Outback 1]

don;t let it get you down damo:D give chris a stir thats bound to make you feel better:D ps enjoyed the visit:D

[barryj]

Diana,

Had a demented elderly pt climb into bed with another pt. Ended up somehow pinning the other pt underneath and promptly had a heart attack...CPR on one pt with another madly trying to get out from underneath :(


I had an 80 odd year old guy hop into bed with me at Greenslopes Private Hospital last year. That was the final straw for me as far as shared wards go as I had top level private cover.

The same guy always asked everyone who was about for tomato sauce. Even at midnight he would press the bell for sauce.

The most annoying thing was when he dropped his pants every time a visitor was in the room :o.

I guess we should be thankful for those who are dedicated to the medical system :). I have seen first hand what the people in Papua New Guinea have :no2:.

[mcrover]

Thanks for all the good wishes guys, I will get to have the operation eventually but I just wanted to get back on with life off the pills that cause me more greif than they do good and to stop having these attacks which sap me of energy.

To NM and Diana, I really take my hat off to you gals and all the hospital workers from the fantastic nursing staff to the Dr's and admin and everyone else that it takes to run a hospital, I dont know how you put up with it.

I have been in and out of Hossy for the last 14 months about 8 or 9 times, I have been in for tests and check ups every month and blood tests every week and normally I have had it pretty good but the same thing keeps popping up, not enough staff and not enough beds for the amount of patients coming through the door.

It's fine to say that you have an average of this amount of patients in a day, week, month or year but you cant use those sort of stats in a system which is there mainly because of the unexpected or at least the emergency system is.

I dont mean to be complaining or making out that Im unhappy with the service that Ive got from the staff from the hospitals that I have had to go to as the staff on the large have been great, the system just needs to be a system that can handle the work load and not a bank balance.

Thanks Ken, I'll take your suggestion on board and hang some crap on Chris, that will make me feel better LOL.....

Thanks again folks

[timaus13]

I sympathise as I waited 6 months for cancer removal just to have it cancelled twice.
By the time I got around to the op the cancer had spread to the point that they had too take half my left hand side of my face.:o
Not too worry was not handsom to start with;) but saved my life in the long run:D, to compound the issue had massive heart attack sometime later:( and had bypass surgery booked turned up anethatised and cancelled twice.:(

O well still here:D:cool::D and still love doctors and nurses:D:D:D just not the govt dept responsable or should I say irresposable for health.:o

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Thanks for all the good wishes guys, ... ... the system just needs to be a system that can handle the work load and not a bank balance. ...

CAN NOT AGREE WITH YOU MORE!

However it seems that the word has got out there to the "Me Generations" Generations X and Y the who don't want to know about careers that involved shift work or committment or whatever.

The following will make you sick: Nurses comprise 50% of the health workforce.
Nearly half of the current nursing workforce are 45 years or older and planning to retire in the next 20 years.
To replace the nurses that are about to retire in the next 20 years we need to qualify about 10,000 Registered Nurses per year (from all sources including training and immigration.)
Last time I saw any statistics NSW was 4,500 nurses short.
Currently we are only qualifying about 5,000 Registered Nurses per year.
That does not replace the nurses we are loosing through retirement, does not replace the shortages we already have, it does not allow for an expanding population and it does not address our ageing "Baby Boomer" population who are now needing increasing healthcare.
Don't be fooled by any political rhetoric - we are already training Enrolled Nurses in TAFE's with all their clinical experience in hospitals. There is notheing new it this plan by one of the parties.

We have already tried local community boards to control hospitals and at least in Sydney we have had to sack them on numerous occassions and bring in administrators.

What the answer is I could go on with all night - but if we want things to improve it will not be by making the emergency department staff more stressed.

Remember nurses are now university trained and they can vote with their feet by moving to another country or profession very easily.

Whom ever wins the next election has to sort this mess out, but don't hold your breath. There may not be any nurses there with oxygen to revive you.

Diana,

[George130]

That's the hospital system.
Brother chopped 1 finger off and mangled 2 others with an angle grinder 2 years ago. 24 hours waiting in Casualty to be seen with no pain relief. His girlfriend ended up catching the train home to gt food and pain relief to bring back to him.
Lets hope the funding improves.

[pete]

My girlfriend works at a certain hospital that has been copping heaps lately,she told me a patient tried to spit on a ED nurse and another nurse was spat on while catching a train home, everybody is taking it out on the nurses when it is the administration and polititions who really are at fault same old story to many cheifs and not enough indians!I know it is a shame but a lot of the time miscarrages are natures way of stopping a potential problem my exwife suffered a miscarrage and to this day WE still think it was for the best.I now have three healthy kids. Also it it is not just limited to rns it is every hospital they are just making a big deal because it was rns if it was some of the other hospital you wouldn't hear a thing about it .eg blacktown hosp lost a full term still born and then creamated it so the parents never even had a baby to bury. Westmead has whole fully equiped wards but they are closed because it will blow their budget.The accountants,polititions who have ruined the health care system should be ashamed and held accountable.
That's my rant

[George130]

Yet another problem is that people are not allowed to die...

We are all educated on giving birth, how babies are born, how to care for little children but no-one educates us on how to die, what it is like, what to expect when you get old, how to care for elderly rellies etc

If only the 99yr olds were allowed to die peacefully without having pointless surgery, investigations and trial medications.

If only people realised that full resusitation at 99yrs is not a case of simply bringing you back to life...certainly won't be better than you were before and likely a lot worse :( But everyone still wants the full effort even tho their time is probably up :(

If we had more nursing home beds, or iof people were will ing to care for their own, more acute beds would be freed up for the emergency cases.

Its unbelievable how many cases that could be coped with at home or in the nursing home get admitted to acute care beds...

Ok...off my soap box

I wonder what awaits me at work tomorrow evening :angel:

Very true.
I discharged my grandmother so she could die in peace at home. My mother would have chosen euthanasia over wasting away in a bed. Wife and I have talked about it and both agree if it is time then remove the machines and let us die.

Pete sorry you other half cops the crap. It's the system not one person. There is only so much in the bucket and only so much one can do.

[landyfromanuthaland]

U are not alone there, waiting times at hospitals is woeful, I dont blame the staff they do the best they can with whats available, My kids play rough at school and now and again we get broken ankles and what not and spend many hours in the ER, I know mostof the night staff on a personal basis, being told u have a procedure at 2 and getting to hospital nice and early to sit around and be told 10 mins before u go inthat its been careful? well I would have not been impressed, I was booked in at the RPA where we go once a month and on the last trip it had been cancelled and they didnt tell us until we arrived at the RPA, I havent been back since, think the receptionist is still hiding under her desk,