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Observing my husband's care while staying in hospital

Posted By Spotless mema

"Observing my husband's care while staying in hospital"

About: Sunnybank Private Hospital

(as a relative),

I recently spent time with my husband in Sunnybank private hospital awaiting tests. He was transferred from another hospital as no private beds in that hospital were available and needed tests done soon.

I arrived after he had breakfast, which he was satisfied with.  I preceded to stay for company, as he had no tests till the next day. (the food was quite good he said)

First reaction I had was when I approached the desk, where several blue dressed nurses were talking to each other and how they completely ignored me.  I was not with my husband when he was admitted, as he came by ambulance from another hospital, so I wanted to check what he had signed.

I thought that it was strange, as no one asked if they could help. A male nurse approached from a different room and asked if he could help me.

Being a private hospital I wanted to make sure our cover was without any extras so far.

After the fellow introduced me to the nurse she started looking through the paperwork on my husband:

The impression I got from staff attending to me was that everything was a bother and we were in a self serve hospital. I asked my husband how he felt after the ordeal transferring and he said he had a pounding headache that he had all morning - this was around 11am. I personally went to ask staff to give some Panadol and inform the nurse I saw that his face looked hot and had high blood pressure the day and night before 181/90.  It seemed to my husband that he had not met this nurse nor seen anyone since arriving the night before.

His catheter was hurting too, but he had put up with it. I must say going from the newly renovated Logan to this well worn hospital with apparently inattentive staff I was quite shocked. After seeing a nurse about not making a bed and change of dirty sheets, I was told, I will address it when I can after giving medication, this never happened whilst I was there and I left late after my husband had gone to bed. So far wondered why we were paying for a private hospital care? ? ?

The toilet in his room smelt like urine, so I also cleaned that myself before I left worried and wondering about his care.

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Responses

Response from Care Opinion Australia 7 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Care Opinion Australia

Submitted on 6/06/2016 at 9:08 AM
Published on Care Opinion at 9:09 AM

Dear Spotless mema

Thank you for providing your feedback on Patient Opinion. We value all feedback and see it as a chance to improve our service and customer care. I would like to offer both you and your husband a most sincere apology that his recent experience in our hospital was less than desirable. This is not what we want for our patients, their families or friends. Sunnybank Private Hospital is committed to excellent service and clinical care for our community and customer service is one of our core values.

Your feedback has been sent to all department managers so that they can remind their staff they must practice exceptional customer service at all times. Sunnybank Private Hospital has adopted a Patient Centred Care Program with strategies and processes aimed at including the patient in their own care. This involves processes like Bedside Handover, Communication Boards and Hourly Rounding. It seems from your feedback, that we need to provide a lot more education for our staff to ensure that they are following the guidelines and providing informative and comprehensive nursing care.

The hospital redevelopment has commenced and already we are seeing “well worn” patient rooms being transformed to modern functional rooms which provide an enhanced level of comfort. All patient areas have been marked for redevelopment or refurbishment over the next 2 years.

In regards to the cleaning of our bathrooms, our Housekeeping Schedule is currently being revised to enable more frequent rounding of bathroom and patient areas. I am so sorry that you had to clean your husband’s toilet because of the smell. This should never have happened and we are putting strategies in place to prevent it from ever happening again.

I am aware that my response will not make a difference to the experience that you had at Sunnybank Private Hospital, and I do sincerely apologise for this. Please be aware that we have taken all of your comments on board, and your feedback has enabled us to critically review the service that we offer our patients and make improvements, and for this I thank you.

Should you require our service in the future, we look forward to meeting your needs and striving to provide the best possible service.

Kind regards,

Quality Manager.

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