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My late parent's missing dentures

Posted By venusdh75

"My late parent's missing dentures"

About: Rockingham General Hospital / Medical Assessment Unit (MAU)

(as a relative),

My parent was hospitalised due to their diabetes. They were in a coma at first and was on life support. My parent had a full set of dentures while they were in hospital ICU, unfortunately they had no brain activity so we took my parent off life support and they died 24 hours later.

In this 2 week period my parent's dentures were somehow lost. We were not able to get my parent cremated with their dentures which I believe they never took out before. The Rockingham Hospital have told me that because my parent died the thousands of dollars spent on my parent's dentures does not matter and they will not compensate the careless loss of them, and our further grief knowing they were not with my parent. I feel they have shown me that my parent does not count now that they are dead and it does not matter that they were careless with my parent's dentures which tells me that they gave up on them before we took them off life support. I feel this has made it harder for the family left behind.  

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Responses

Response from Kath Smith, Executive Director, Rockingham Peel Group, South Metropolitan Health Service 4 years ago
Kath Smith
Executive Director, Rockingham Peel Group,
South Metropolitan Health Service

Submitted on 13/01/2020 at 12:28 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 12:30 PM

picture of Kath Smith

Dear venusdh75,

Please accept my sincere condolences on the loss of your parent, I appreciate that this is a very difficult time for you and your family.

I apologise that your parent’s dentures were mislaid and I understand how this has added to your grief.

Unfortunately, this is a complex issue and WA Health policies for reimbursement require that a claim along with an invoice be provided to us for assessment before this can be progressed any further.

I am concerned that you feel the hospital was uncaring in the way that the matter was handled, therefore I urge you to take up the previous offer of a meeting in order to discuss these issues further. Please contact the Consumer Liaison Department on 9599 4632 to arrange a meeting.

Kind regards

Kath Smith Executive Director

Rockingham Peel Group

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