"Patient transfer communication"

My elderly relative was at Albany Health Campus. I understand they wanted transfer to my relative to another hospital due to bed shortage, which I understand, but I didn’t like the way they went about it. So, they were transferred to another hospital a few days later and some days prior to this the incident occurred.

I felt they could have gone about it in a different way. I understand the doctor said it would be best if my relative could go to Albany. My relative was in hospital for a few months before passing away. There was a doctor looking into the health problems, as my relative was in their 90s and had a number of health problems. My relative was on ward and they were putting in applications for my relative to be transferred into another care service. My relative's spouse is in their 90s with dementia and their adult child has a disability.

I received information from two other sources, a social worker and a person from ACAT assessment, and I heard they were moving my relative that afternoon and I had not been contacted by them. I was upset about it and tried to contact the nurse manager but they’d gone home. I spoke to someone else and I was upset, and I recognise I was a bit upset on the phone, I demanded an explanation.

So we went to the hospital to give information to my relative and my relative didn’t want to be transferred, and I felt the doctors pushed back too. I believe the bed manager disregarded what the doctor had said and said the doctor didn’t have the jurisdiction to order my relative to stay.

My relative stayed at Albany for a few more days and the original bed manager called me and said they had tried to contact someone to let them know about my relative's transfer. I said I had not been contacted and they had contacted the wrong people, their spouse and adult child, however, my number should have been on the file not theirs. My relative was transferred to another care service and deteriorated rapidly after that, which I understand, they were elderly and had many health problems.

My relative then went back to Albany and passed a few days later. I feel that department needs to have a look about how they deal with that sort of thing. I don’t know if it was just a miscommunication but it caused distress for me and I was very upset. I hope that by telling this story I can prevent it from happening in the future to someone else.