"Premature discharge."

It pains me to have to write this, but I feel very strongly that SCGH needs to understand the ramifications of their decisions. Recently I had my wife home for the weekend from her nursing home. The day after she arrived home she became unwell in the afternoon and I called an ambulance. At around 4 pm she presented to your ED. During all this time my wife was agitated. She was seen by a junior medical officer. She was sent for an x-ray and I presume that it was clear as nobody told me any different. It took nearly 4 hours for a urine sample to be obtained so that some sort of diagnosis could be made. At no time was she offered anything to eat or drink or any attempt made to make sure that she had her normal medications. Finally they gave her a dose of antibiotics based on the fact that a couple of months ago she presented with similar symptoms which proved to be a septic UTI (urinary tract infection). I was then told that it was better for her to be discharged back to the nursing home. I had my doubts. As I had in the past had problems in getting her stay extended I went along with their plan. She was discharged with a script, which in itself I thought a bit off.

I had to ring the nursing home the next day to find out if she in fact had arrived. What happened next is the subject of another complaint. What you people need to know is that my wife required acute care rather than high care. The nursing homes are (according to them) not funded for acute care. My wife when she has a UTI, which she gets all too often becomes very agitated and requires constant monitoring. The nursing home does not provide this. The day after her ED visit, my wife suffered two falls one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I have been told that in my wife’s age group 20% of falls are fatal. I went over there & at my insistence a locum was called who asked their supervisor for my wife to be monitored. They declined. My view is that my wife should never have been discharged in the first place at least until the agitation had subsided and that it was confirmed that she was on the correct medication. In my opinion, what we have here is an obvious case of buck passing. At no time did I speak to or see the registrar. Does my wife need to break her hip, which with her medical condition could prove fatal before she gets the care she needs? As it was she hit her head.