"The positives and negatives I experienced at Maroondah Hospital"

Emergency admission for serious lung infection.

Positives

-ED triage nurse Gabriel. Acted quickly.

-Senior ED doctor, who backed up after the junior doctor and knew how to care for someone with Primary Immune Deficiency.

-Nurses on 3N. Who quickly understood that I'm a patient with exceptional knowledge of what is happening in my body and also of my complex genetic and congenital medical conditions.

-Awesome Senior Physiotherapist, who helped quickly work out what I needed to be able to regain control of my lungs.

-HITH Eastern@home were very helpful.

Negatives

-Junior ED doctor, who appeared to me to fall apart and in the process of doing so, started telling me, what I felt was complete and utter rubbish. This doctor also excluded my spouse - by forcing them out of the cubicle and drawing the curtain, in their face. It may have been cultural, but the doctor didn't even ask if I wanted my spouse to stay. I felt the doctor also should have realised that they were out of their depth, they seemed to lose the plot. The doctor also told me time and time again that they couldn't contact the unit that is permanently responsible for my care at a big tertiary hospital, and then when they did contact the Registrar, the doctor told me that they woke the poor Registrar up and then they couldn't get my information from their system. In contrast to the Senior ED doctor, called the hospital switchboard, explained what they needed and got the urgently required information. I am more than happy to provide a detailed list of what I believe was incorrect information that this junior doctor gave me, on request.

-Registrar and Resident Respiratory doctors, seemed to be out of their depth. They didn't tell me rubbish but I felt as though they weren't taking advantage of the backup available from the tertiary hospital. They seemed to be out of their depth. Likewise with the physiotherapy students.

-Respiratory Consultant who turned up from Box Hill hospital, who seemed to feel confronted and out of depth - started to spout what I felt was rubbish. They also asked me if I bit my finger nails - as if that could be the reason for a severe chest infection - seriously! I felt this doctor wasted my time. If they felt out of their depth, they should choose to learn vs. defensively giving what was, in my opinion, misinformation . My regular consultant concurs that it was incorrect information. I believe this doctor only did harm to their reputation and the reputation of Eastern Health..

-I've been told that Eastern Health refuse to allow day leave - I wonder if anyone on the board of Eastern Health have ever been a patient, who needs to be an inpatient for more than a day or two. Take a lesson from the major tertiary hospitals, who understand the importance of taking care of patients, mental well being into account.

-Pharmacy failed to come to the party, for discharge to HITH. They had everything prepared but, unlike they had told HITH, they didn't bring the medication up to the ward; they locked up and went home. The after hours pharmacy person, who it was believed should have been able to gain access to the pharmacy and retrieve the drugs, said they couldn't help. Therefore I had to spend another night - at $1000+ a day in 3N.