Public Hospitals, what a joke.

Thats one thing I like about our little country hospital. Doctors might be on call rather than on duty and you are often refered to Canberra but you get seen within an hour. If you are refered to Canberra they give you the notes and call ahead so that when you arrive an hour later you are put through qickly:).
Often when you can't get in to see the GP and you need a dotor that day you are told to go to the hospital as he is on call today so will be sent up when you arrive.

had a kidney stone last year took 3 very painfull trips to tully hospital in north qld before it was properly dianosed then had to go to brisbane to get it out faster then the wait in cairns(3/4 months)got to brisbane 1 visit to get checked out took all day.2 visit for operation to move stone into kidney so they can blast it then 3 painfull months till final op to blast stone doctors dont care if your in pain they told me just take time of work(took almost 6 months in the public system for 1 little stone)at lest i got to traval while waiting

Speaking as a vet you probably would have been seen quicker at your local vet....

What we're witnessing here is a system in trouble and no politician has the guts to fix it. The staff member you were referring to was probably overworked and underpaid.

I guess the lesson is do the triage yourself - a visit to the chemist and pick up some nice painkillers and anti-inflammatories, elevation, ice.... visit your local GP->radiographs etc.

Remember the ambos are there for critical cases. Having a few ambo friends I know how abused they are also.

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Originally Posted by gumby190

My dealings with the public system have all been pleasant/quick ones -

1. 15mins wait when my son was running a high fever.
2. 30mins when I shattered my knee, but they were kind enough to drug me up.
3. Straight in when I nearly cut my finger off.
4. Straight in when I cut my toe off.

Maybe I am lucky?

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Crikies mate!!...I'd hate to see what could happen if you were unlucky!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Drivesafe

I don't know the design of the hospital you are complaining about, or the system in Qld emergency departments and my thoughts are with you for the less than satisfactory experience. It is also unfortunate that the triage nurse in question did not find the time to keep you informed or offer your wife analgesia. However there are a few statements that I feel I must make.

When people are in the waiting room, they often don't know what the workloads are in the main department, in some hospitals patients can arrive by ambulance and not be seen passing through the waiting room. In many departments after-hours there may only be 1 or 2 doctors working. If 1 patient is in a life threatening condition, it may take all doctors and a large proportion of the nurses off the floor of the ED, effectively stopping the throughput of the waiting room. It would be a breach of confidentiality to inform the waiting room of the condition of any other patient in the ED. Therefore the triage nurse is prevented from informing you of what is going on.

In NSW it is a requirement that Triage Nurses are experienced nurses with additional training and they operate under a system called the Australian National Triage Score which prioritises presentations into a scale from immediately life threatening through non-urgent (should have gone to the GP). You don't find in-experienced nurses on triage desks. Also triage nurses are the people who receive the most abuse of any other health professional. Mostly because people in general always feels that their illness or injury is worse than other people's and the triage nurse is the person singled out for the patient's loss of expectation.

How would you feel is on every day you went to work, you coped a tirade of abuse from every Tom, Dick and Harry who presented with a injury to their arm or foot.

I am offended that people feel free to call one of my colleagues a "bitch", merely because she is doing her job, at the front of a system that is broken because of the politics of Government, a generation who want instant gratification, have no commitment to anyone other than themselves, let alone work in a profession where shift work is the norm and topped off by the sometimes unreasonable expectations of the public.

Diana :(:(

P.S. When attending triage of patients arriving by ambulance, it is very common for the patient to be taken off the stretcher and triaged to the waiting room. So before you decide to use the "red light taxi service" remember you may still wait hours and end up with a bill for the ambulance.

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Ooh, bad day today at the POW, Diana? Bit of SOL? Never mind, a couple of fourple Stolichnayas makes the world feel better.

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Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

I am offended that people feel free to call one of my colleagues a "bitch", merely because she is doing her job, at the front of a system that is broken because of the politics of Government, a generation who want instant gratification, have no commitment to anyone other than themselves, let alone work in a profession where shift work is the norm and topped off by the sometimes unreasonable expectations of the public.

Diana :(:(

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When I get verbally abused by any person, with absolutely no grounds for her to do this, I most certainly have the right to brand her as being a bitch and you may be offended because I called a “colleague” a bitch but I find it just as offensive for anyone to consider it OK for one of their “colleagues” to be abusive just because they are a fellow “colleague”

I’m quite sure, as you posted, that Triage nurses get abused, but this bitch did not got abused by me in any way shape or form and therefore had absolutely no reason to be abusive.

If I had a means by which I could prove the way the bitch behaved, I would follow the advice of a few of the posters on this thread and put her into the head of administration, but as there were no witnesses, there is no case for her to answer.

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Originally Posted by drivesafe

If I had a means by which I could prove the way the bitch behaved, I would follow the advice of a few of the posters on this thread and put her into the head of administration, but as there were no witnesses, there is no case for her to answer.

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Why do you need a witness - if she was that bad a report would still not go astray - she may well have done this kind of thing before. I reported the poor performance of a surgeon at St Vincents a few years ago and if nothing else - it's now 'on record'.....

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Originally Posted by 29dinosaur

Why do you need a witness - if she was that bad a report would still not go astray - she may well have done this kind of thing before.

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Good point!

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Originally Posted by DaveS3

I waited 6hrs one night after shattering 2 fingers which where diagnosed by the nurse as "Badly Sprained" in Box Hill Public Hospital a few years ago now.

That was bad enough for me - otherwise all other experiences I have had with others have been just OK.

It is crap.

Dave

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That doesn't surprise me at all about Box Hill Hospital. It's not so much that the hospital itself is completely crap, its the fact that the emergency department is always chocked full of battlers who are unwilling to pay a cent for any medical treatment whatsoever, no matter how minor. They treat it like a GP clinic.

I had turned up there one night as I had an endolymphatic sac about to burst (ie time is of the essence). Hopeless, so I went next door to the Epworth which has no emergency dept!!

Unfortunately (and its not right) the only way to overcome the problem is with private cover and money. As soon as I walked into Epworth richmond emergency that same night waving $400 and mbf card around, they funnily enough saw me first, did everything and supplied half their pharmacy...

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Originally Posted by Numpty's Missus

This is true. Chest pain will; get you in pronto......BUT.....please don"t do this :( You may be taking abed from someone who really needs it :mad:

Redcliffe Hosp works at 110% bed occupancy...so its already hard to get a bed. If everyone bunged on chest pain just to get seen for a broken toe.......................:(:(:(

And...as for the physical abuse posters...well, when you've had a couple of punches in the face, or an attempted stabbing like I have in the last few years at work, it puts a whole new perspective on how you might get upset by a few angry words eh?

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Geeeeezzzzz NM! ..........is that all.........how about daily and for less pay then what most could make packing shelves at the local supemarket. Had a knife pulled on me just this week. Although he now realizes just how afronted I was at his actions, and how antisocial they were, he underwent an immediated crash course in etiquette and good manners and has assured me that he has now realized the error of his ways and how wrong they were and has sworn on a 8 foot high stack of bibles that he has permanently mended his erronious thinking that I was only present so that he could vent his spleen freely upon. He now realizes also that I do have rights and in fact, as unfairly as it may seem, my rights do over shadow his, he assures me with the utmost sincerity that he now holds me in the highest of respect and has expressed his abject disgusted at his previously held opinions that he had the right to perforate my overly large body whenever he felt like it. He also has admitted and acknowledged that it would be extremely painful to have the object he threatened me with, lodged somewhere between his spincter muscle and his colon.
He has undertaken to become a model pris....err......person with an extremely healthy respect for all objects wearing blue with stars on shoulders.

Education......don't ya just love it.:D