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"Extremely slow emergency service"

About: St George Hospital / Emergency Department

(as the patient),

While I understand that high priority emergencies take priority, waiting several hours to see a Dr overnight, I believe, just isn’t acceptable. Myself and, it seemed, other patients were continually told that there was one person ahead on the list. There appeared to be no order at all. Two patients, I believe, clearly suffering miscarriages were made to wait, one for almost a couple of hours. Another patient who was, I understand, suffering chest pain on the left had been sitting, at the time I wrote this story, for close to a few hours. I believe this hospital is obviously understaffed and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

Several hours and counting at the time of writing this but unfortunately I can’t leave as I am still bleeding steadily, several hours after a kitchen accident. I believe it’s just unacceptable.

I feel it should not be called an emergency department, as in my opinion, there is clearly no sense of urgency. I feel the nursing staff so far have been nice but the overall experience for me here has been abysmal.  

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Responses

Response from Paul Darcy, General Manager, St George Hospital 2 years ago
Paul Darcy
General Manager,
St George Hospital

General Manager of St George Hospital

Submitted on 17/06/2021 at 8:36 AM
Published on Care Opinion at 9:07 AM


Dear octansjk76,

Thank you for taking the time to write of your experience when you visited our Emergency Department.

I was disappointed to read of your experience with having to wait whilst you were bleeding steadily. All patients that present to the Emergency Department undergo a triage process. The purpose of the triage is to identify the sickest patients and the critically unwell so that they receive specialist treatment as soon as possible to achieve the best outcome. Our highly trained staff allocated a triage category and patients are seen according to clinical priority. This means that some patients may wait longer than others. Our wait times are continually reviewed to ensure they are kept to a minimum.

Although the Emergency Department is very busy at times, we work hard to ensure that our patients received faster access to care.

I do apologise that on this occasion you experienced a few hours wait time. I hope that you are recovering well from your injury.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Darcy

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