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Closing Respiratory Ward

Posted By StressedMum76

"Closing Respiratory Ward"

About: Perth Children's Hospital / Ward 2B - Medical

(as a parent/guardian),

Recently, 7 News reported that Ward 2b will no longer be a dedicated ward for Respiratory patients. As the parent of a child with Cystic Fibrosis (CF), this terrifies me! I believe this means, no longer will there be nurses trained in the complex needs of these patients! I believe this will cause severe issues for all respiratory patients. In my opinion, we need nurses trained and regularly dealing with medications and the requirements of CF patients. CF is multidisciplinary. Dietitians, physiotherapists, ENT, the list goes on.

Nurses on 2b are required to have knowledge of how vital each of these roles are. Without a dedicated Ward, medications aren’t on close hand, port needling staff I believe would need to be called from other wards. I feel our kids won’t get the care they need and deserve! In my opinion, this cannot happen. 

Early this year, we were admitted to the Burns Ward as there were no beds on 3b. The Nurses were lovely but admitted to having no experience with CF. I believe this caused my child severe anxiety as medications were missed or late, due to being on a different ward. One nurse said to me, thank goodness I can stay and tell them what my child needs, as they had no idea and could miss anything! 

I don’t blame the staff at all! They do their best, always. Whoever it is, sitting in an office I believe with no idea of what is actually needed is who I blame! In my opinion, they should ask the staff before decisions like this are made and ask the people that depend on these Wards before making such life-changing decisions! This cannot and will not happen without a very public fight in my opinion!

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Responses

Response from Andre Schultz, Consultant, Respiratory, Perth Children's Hospital | Child and Adolescent Health Service 3 years ago
Andre Schultz
Consultant, Respiratory,
Perth Children's Hospital | Child and Adolescent Health Service

Submitted on 14/09/2020 at 3:40 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 3:44 PM

Dear StressedMum76,

Thank you for taking the time to get in touch through Care Opinion. We recognise the stress and anxiety that has been caused amongst the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) parent community as a result of the recent media story, and that parents like yourself understandably have many questions about what this means for your child. We apologise for the distress this has caused.

We have a strong network of CF parents here at Perth Children’s Hospital (PCH), and have emailed an open letter today to all families to provide information and reassurance about the changes to how we care for children and young people with CF. We anticipate you will receive a copy directly, however, below are some key points from the letter:

Children with cystic fibrosis will not be dispersed across the hospital. They will continue to be cared for across two wards:

Younger patients with cystic fibrosis will be cared for together on Ward 2A Older patients with cystic fibrosis will continue to be cared for on Ward 4A (Adolescent ward).

The same specialist nursing staff and the cystic fibrosis team will continue to care for patients with cystic fibrosis in these two locations at PCH. Patients with cystic fibrosis will continue to be cared for in a single room and the highest infection control and prevention measures will be maintained.

The changes have been the subject of careful consideration, and we can assure you that the clinical staff, with us included, have been involved in ensuring the decisions are made with the best intentions to maintain and improve the care we provide to all patients and families.

We would like to reassure you that your child will continue to receive the highest level of care and will continue to be managed by experienced respiratory nurses, and members of the cystic fibrosis team. Like you, we value and respect the expert care and support our nursing, medical and allied health team provide to children and young people living with cystic fibrosis, and their parents and families.

We understand that children and young people with cystic fibrosis have complex and specific care needs as you have described, and we are committed to ensuring the best possible care is provided by our staff no matter where this care is provided at PCH.

We are planning to host an information session for CF parents to hear about the changes and discuss their concerns. If you would like to attend this session, please contact our office by e-mail (CAHSEXECUTIVEOfficeofCE@health.wa.gov.au) so that an invitation can be sent to you directly.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts and concerns, and we wish you and your child all the very best.

Kind regards,

Dr Andre Schultz, Consultant, Respiratory, and

Dr Andrew Wilson, Head of Department, Respiratory Medicine

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