"Misdiagnosed fracture"

This was back over a year ago now however, I have not known where to address the issue until now. I was taken in through the emergency side of the building on a Friday night for a suspected broken foot. Admittedly, I had had a few drinks, but was certainly not drunk or unable to comprehend. That night one of the nurses told me I had sprained my foot and I’d be fine, wrote a few notes and told me to go to the doctor on Monday to get a referral for any further questions. I had said on a number of occasions that I knew it was broken, however I was not screaming and making a fuss so in the end, the nurse very roughly applied a compression sock to my foot. In that process, she caught my little toe that adjoined the metatarsal bone that I knew was broken and in a couple of minutes I was sent home with a pair of I’ll fitting and incorrect height crutches. I went home, took some Panadol (which they refused to give me) and put my foot up.

The next day at about midday, I noticed that the whole top of my foot had started to turn blue and was double the size of my other foot. I went back to the hospital and asked if they could please look at it again. I was turned away without a second look and told to go to the doctors on Monday (the doctors charge $80 per visit).

On Monday I went to the local GP who told me it was sprained, by this time I was in quite a bit of pain and demanded an x-ray. She huffed and ordered an x-ray if my ankle. I told her that was incorrect and would like an x-ray of the top of my foot where I was pointing to, where I knew the break was. She refused to change the paperwork and sent me away. I went to the hospital and saw the x-ray technician. She asked me what we were x-raying today and I replied - the top of my foot - again pointing to where I knew the break was. She said - well the paperwork doesn’t say that, guess I’ll have to call and change it. So eventually I went in for my x-ray and the tech forcefully pushed my foot onto the board repeatedly saying - your foot needs to be flat, put it flat - pushing down on the top of my foot. I gritted my teeth and smiled knowing what she would see in a matter of seconds.

Once the x-ray was taken, I could not have greeted a nicer person in all my life, spoke to me about how my day was and how I’d done the injury and tisked the doctors for turning me away twice. Turns out I had a spiral fracture and the bones were sitting side by side and may require surgery. The GP I’d seen came over from the doctor's surgery and her first words were - wow, I’ll bet you didn’t think this would be the outcome when you walked in today. To which I replied - actually I told you and the nurses here 3 days ago that it was broken and you all turned me away because I didn’t kick and scream. She laughed it off and said - oh well - shrugging her shoulders.

I was then taken to a room for a different set of nurses (who were absolutely lovely! ) to set me up for 2 nerve blocks to perform a realignment. By this time the doctor could not move anything in my foot because the swelling was so extensive. She said that was the best she could do and left the nurses to plaster it in a half cast because it was so swollen. The bones were still side by side and have now healed like that. It took 3 months for the bones to recover enough for me to walk without limping or pain.

I believe the way I was treated was just belittling and unnecessary. I also believe this is also not an isolated case, I have known of another very similar situation. This hospital seems to be unaudited and I dread to think of how many times this or worse situations have happened.