"Shortage of resources"

I have worked for Eastern Health for almost 10 years. Unfortunately recently I was a patient at Box Hill Hospital for the first time in my adult life. My experience as a patient was first class without a doubt from the triage desk to being admitted to ward the nursing staff were awesome all the way along.

My concern was as I am a healthcare worker and I had come in with a temperature, I needed to be COVID tested and sent to an isolation room until my test came back. Once my test came back negative I was being sent to a surgical ward, I was told that I was being moved during the night so I gathered my belongings and put them on my bed as I was being moved on my bed. I was waiting for approx. 2 hours for a Patient Services Assistant (PSA) to move me from one ward to another, due to my belongings being on the bed I could not be comfortable or sleep while waiting. I was feeling very anxious, fortunately, I was not too unwell but I was thinking about very unwell or elderly patients going through this same feeling I believe. It upset me as one of our values is Patients First and I feel I abide by this. When the PSA did arrive they were very apologetic. My position in Eastern Health is the Supervisor of support services so I am fully aware of the pressure that they (and nursing staff) are under.

The next night, close to midnight, I could overhear the nurses talking about how long they have been waiting for a bed to be cleaned as ED pressuring them. I came out from my bed and said I'm sorry I have overheard your conversation and explained what role I was in for Eastern Health. I said you could call the CARPS office but do you know what the PSA assigned to your job probably has 10 to 20 jobs on their list before yours. While we were talking the PSA arrived, they showed me their phone and sure enough, they had at least 15 jobs on there. I understand that looking at the bigger picture is the budget but I believe surely more resources will promote better access and patient safety, also staff wellbeing as when you have 1 or 2 staff late at night or overnight to cover many wards they are under enormous pressure.

Thank you for taking the time to read my concerns hopefully, we can learn something from this as I had certainly seen things from a very different perspective that week (being on the other side).

Kind Regards