"Poor doctor care in ED"

Dear lynxbm87,

Thank you for sharing your story with us about your recent experience attending the Narrogin Health Service Emergency Department. We aim to provide high quality and compassionate care, and I was very sorry to read that this was not your experience after your recent fall.

I would like you to know that I have shared your story with our Director of Medical Services, Dr Peter Barratt and have asked him to reiterate to the Doctors in the Narrogin Health Service Emergency Department the care options that were available to you, with respect to your elbow injury. This will be done at the August Medical Advisory Committee. It should have been explained to you that Narrogin Hospital is not able to perform acute orthopaedic surgery so any fracture requiring surgery is referred to Perth. This may have been the reason that the Doctor did not recommend calling in the radiographer – as an X-ray is unlikely to have changed the way we were able to manage your injury overnight. However, I’m very sorry if the way that this was communicated to you indicated that your care was not a priority. I would have expected that the doctor would have offered to admit you to the hospital for pain relief, and to stabilise your elbow injury to help relieve pain before requesting an X-ray in the morning. If you had declined this option, a back slab and sling with strong pain relief could have been provided for your journey to Perth for further assessment.

Please accept my apologies that this did not occur and that you were left in pain while you drove to Perth. All of our patients, and their families and carers should be included in the decisions around their healthcare and I am very sorry if the issues and options weren’t properly discussed with you, to allow you to decide on a care plan that would best suit your circumstances.

Whilst I cannot change the experience you and your partner had, I hope in hearing, and learning from your story, we can ensure that the concerns you raised are not repeated. I would like to thank you for taking the time to share with me the kind care that you received from the nurse who cleaned and dressed your wound. I will make sure that I pass this feedback on also.

I would welcome your call if you would like me to review your presentation in further detail. My name is Jenny Menasse and I am the Operations Manager at Narrogin Health Service. I can be contacted on (08) 9881 0413 or via email jenny.menasse@health.wa.gov.au.

I hope that you are recovering well.

Kind regards

Jenny Menasse

Operations Manager