"I feel no one has the right to treat people the way they treated me."

I was taken to Royal Perth Hospital with heart failure. The team that looked after me in ICU was brilliant, I couldn’t fault the doctor.

However I can’t say the same about the orderlies that attended to me. One of them shouted at me in front of a nurse to get up, they were not going to do it for me. I had had heart failure and been in a coma, I was extremely weak. The nurse didn’t seem to intervene when the orderly shouted at me. It really made me feel low. Often I would see some of the orderlies just sitting around. It seemed to me they didn’t know my history and didn’t take it in to consideration. One orderly even questioned why was I so special? I honestly feel it was because of my ethnicity that I was treated this way.

Most of the nurses I came in to contact with were brilliant. They would often joke with me and make light of my situation, which really made me feel better. I had one situation with a particular nurse though which was extremely upsetting. Due to a previous bowel re-sectioning I have a catheter. I was using a bottle to relieve myself in bed when I soiled myself. At the same time the catheter moved. When the nurse came in she bought other members of staff with her and I didn’t know why they were there. She then said to me why did you do this? Did you do it to p**s me off?

I feel no one has the right to treat people the way they treated me. At times I felt the treatment I received was so low from some of the staff I saw. I would like to see a letter go out to all orderlies that explains appropriate behaviour and treatment of patients. From my experience I would also like to see orderlies trained better and made aware of each patient’s history. They also need to consider putting people in appropriate wards. I am not old and I was in a room with older people who had lung problems and the noises at night were horrible.