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"Not patient centred"

About: Sale Hospital / Emergency Department Sale Hospital / Rehabilitation Ward

(as a carer),

Last month, my parent was transferred from another hospital to Sale Hospital with a suspected stroke. They displayed severe fatigue and left-sided weakness. My parent was transferred with the doctor requesting a) a brain scan and b) continued management as they felt they could not manage my parent at the other hospital. I believe they were transferred in the evening and my family all breathed a sigh of relief believing my parent would be cared for.

Almost 4 hours later, I phoned to check on my parent, only to find out they were still sitting in Emergency at Sale Hospital and the ED staff were deciding whether to admit or discharge them. When I questioned further, they stated my parent would be discharged home. I explained they had been sent by a doctor for a brain scan after a suspected stroke, that they were unable to stay awake to feed themselves or care for themselves and that my parent had been completely independent previously.

After being promised a doctor would review my parent, I phoned back at an hour later to be informed they were still waiting to be reviewed. I called my child to go down and see what was happening. Only after my child advocated on my parent's behalf and showed a video of my parent two weeks prior did they admit them.

A brain scan was completed which confirmed a stroke. After being admitted to the medical ward my parent began to improve. The allied health staff have been fantastic and the nursing staff, particularly John, have been great.

Recently, myself and my sibling (Power of Attorneys) discussed with the staff the ongoing plan which was for my parent to receive rehab at Sale Hospital as we were uncomfortable with them returning to the other hospital (for numerous reasons).

The next day, we found out that my parent's plan had been changed without consultation and they would be sent to the other hospital the following day. This was without consultation and against all of our wishes. We will try to fight this decision, however, I believe this is not patient-centred care, we were not involved in the decision, and our wishes were overruled by someone who did not bother to inform us.

A plan is a plan. I feel it shouldn’t be changed on a whim.  

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Responses

Response from Frank Evans, Chief Executive Officer, Central Gippsland Health 3 years ago
Frank Evans
Chief Executive Officer,
Central Gippsland Health
Submitted on 7/12/2020 at 10:56 AM
Published on Care Opinion at 10:57 AM


picture of Frank Evans

Dear pagerrn43,

My name is Frank Evans and I am the Chief Executive Officer of Central Gippsland Health.

Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention and for providing your contact information through a different process. I am very sorry that we have let your parent and your family down, and caused you such unnecessary concern.

By bringing your concerns to our attention, we were able to get involved straight away and ensure that a plan is agreed to by everyone and that your parent’s and family’s goals and priorities are central to the plan.

I am now hopeful that we have achieved this. I would also like you to know that our failing to ensure your parent and family were at the centre of our care has provided an opportunity for us to review what went wrong and why, in order to make improvements with the goal of ensuring that we don’t let others down.

We currently have a group of people supporting our health care teams to work together to put patients at the centre of our care. We have also recently developed a training package relevant for all staff, regardless of which department they work in. We are asking all our staff to undertake this training, and design their own special projects for making person-centred care part of everything we do in every aspect of our work.

If you would feel comfortable in contacting me to pursue this further, I would be very happy to hear from you and can be reached at frank.evans@cghs.com.au or on (03) 5143 8319.

Best Regards,

Frank

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