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Emergency Department Triage Process

Posted By Cookaburra

"Emergency Department Triage Process"

About: Geraldton Hospital / Emergency Department

(as the patient),

I went to the Geraldton Hospital Emergency Department recently, with a temperature of 39 degrees (after Panadol & Nurofen), severe headache and other flu symptoms. I was left in the waiting area, contagious, for 3 hours and every person that was put in before me, I believe, was Aboriginal. In my opinion, they were not as sick as me or the white baby with a bad flu, one person was sitting there laughing with their friend and in my opinion, demonstrated no illness symptoms.

When I complained to triage they said I just have to wait. The triage nurse also failed to tell the doctor that I was on immune suppressant medication and that I had a heart issue where my right coronary artery goes into spasm when under stress. I feel that you need to look at the quality of the nursing staff who are on the triage desk.  

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Responses

Response from Michele Young, REOC Lead, Executive Services, WACHS-Midwest 4 years ago
Michele Young
REOC Lead, Executive Services,
WACHS-Midwest

Submitted on 1/08/2019 at 4:37 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 5:01 PM

picture of Michele Young

Dear Cookaburra,

Thank you for taking the time to share your story on Patient Opinion. I was sorry to read of your experience at the Geraldton Hospital Emergency Department. I acknowledge the concerns you have raised and I know it can be difficult and a little stressful when you are unwell and you have a long wait to receive care.

The Geraldton Hospital Emergency Department uses the Australian Triage Scale system to prioritise patients based on how unwell they are, which includes the level of discomfort that you were experiencing. When you arrive at the Emergency Department either by ambulance, Royal Flying Doctor Service, by yourself, or with your family or carer, a Triage Nurse will assess the urgency of your condition. You will be given a rating from one to five, with category one being patients in need of the most urgent care. You can always ask the Triage Nurse what rating you have been given. If you are critically ill or have life-threatening injuries you will be taken immediately into the department for treatment and care. If you have less urgent clinical needs you will either be made comfortable in a treatment area or asked to go to the waiting area. Unfortunately, on some occasions, there may be a wait.

I have discussed your story with Derek Fraser, Geraldton Hospital Operations Manager who would like an opportunity to further discuss your concerns so we would be very grateful if you could please contact us directly. Derek Fraser, Operations Manager, Geraldton Hospital can be contacted on 9956 2369 or 0409 045 153 or alternatively, you can contact myself on 9956 8695 or michele.young@health.wa.gov.au. Your call would be very welcome and can still be addressed anonymously if you wish.

Thank you again for sharing your experience with us. Patient Opinion is about honest and meaningful conversations with our patients and health service users to help us to improve our service.

I hope you have recovered well and I look forward to hearing from you very soon.

Kind regards

Michele

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