"Emergency department"

Unfortunately after work I was unable to apply any pressure to my knee and along down my calf seemed to swell up quite severely. My grandparents arrived to the Ed with me at 7pm and we went straight to reception and checked in.

At the time we arrived out the back it seemed that quite a few emergencies were occurring and required all hands on deck to help so triaging was slow for quite awhile. Unfortunately it did take quite a while from being triaged to seeing a doctor which when I was in an insane amount of pain and the nurses were aware of that can be quite frustrating. I was very understanding of what was going on and that there more urgent cases before mine but I didn’t get to see a doctor till close to 2am in the morning.

My experience with my triage nurse Ben was lovely I’ve had him before and he always makes the experience funny and at ease. Christina was a lovely nurse and when she took over she made sure that we were all aware of how sorry they were that we weren’t getting seen yet by the doctors and the reason why as much as she could tell us. Once we finally were able to see Doctor Alex he was so nice and thorough and made sure to go through everything step by step to make sure both me and my Grandma understood what was happening and then gave us a few minutes to discuss what we thought was best.

Christina came back in with food as she didn’t want me to take any pain meds without food in my stomach and she was able to accommodate to my Dairy allergy and made the whole stressful experience fun and non stressful at all. We decided to come home and await pathologies arrival before we called the emergency department to allow us to get some sleep incase we would have to come back in. When I called at 7am I was able to get straight back through to Alex who reassured me that my test was normal and I didn’t have DVT like we suspected I was then informed that if I book in with my GP they would like me to get an ultrasound to confirm a bakers cyst. I was provided while at the emergency with a script for some pain meds until I could get into my gp and this has helped me tremendously with being able to be comfortable at home at not feeling unable to move. 

I have to say all in all this was a positive yet long experience at Wonthaggi Hospital. I have not had a bad experience here and I will continue to come whenever I need to attend a hospital. 

Some feedback for the facilities inside the emergency: 

- I think something that could make a hot coffee or tea would be amazing. Over that course of time being there you tend to get quite tired and in need of something hot especially when the doors kept opening and it was cold air through the doors. 

- some more comfy chairs would be amazing but obviously not a possibility 🤣 after an amount of time your body starts to go stiff and you require the need to stand but unfortunately due to my pain level I was not really able to stand for a long time. 

- a place to charge phones or multiple chargers. Unfortunately I didn’t realise I would be there as long as I was so I didn’t bring a phone charger the reception were able to provide me with a charger but I think a stand or a charging station would be good as quite a few patients in the time I was there required a charger. 

- A cafe or place to get some food other than the chips and stuff in the vending machine. I found the food in the vending machine weren’t as susceptible as what it could of been and it was mainly chocolate which with a dairy allergy I was unable to eat any of this. Some snacks would have been nice to keep me going but I found I was limited in my choices to buy anything. 

- ideally having more then two doctors on shift on the late night shift. We were made aware that only two doctors were on staff at the time which when there were around 8 of us in the waiting room plus all the beds in the short stay requiring being seen by a doctor that is a lot for just two doctors and i feel care would of been provided a lot faster if there were more doctors onsite. 

I really hope these messages regarding the amazing experience I was provided by your staff is passed on as it was truly the best care I have had and all the staff mentioned went above and beyond in helping me receive care. There were a few negatives but there was nothing the staff could do unfortunately to avoid these negatives happening and I was aware of that.