"Poor care of my parent"

My parent was recently in the Alfred Hospital for heart surgery. The ICU area was incredible, the staff were supportive and genuinely cared for their patients. However, in my experience, that is where the care ends at The Alfred. In my opinion, if you are of a particular age and are sent to a ward, the person becomes invisible and disregarded.

I believe the staff I spoke to make many promises they do not keep, they do not pass messages onto patients so that during Covid they know their families love and care for them. While there are good staff there, I feel there are also those who are dismissive and made me feel that caring for my parent was an inconvenience for them.

I was convinced to allow them to take my parent to their rehab ward, staff told me they would receive rehab sessions each day and that this program was designed to improve my parent's mobility and fitness. While they were telling me this, as I understand it, my parent sat in the ward for 3 days and saw no-one.

When they finally allowed my parent to talk to me and they told me this, I demanded that when my parent was medically fit that they be released into my care. My parent was released with a new list of medications during a very brief video call where I was told that these were their new regular medications and all instructions were on the boxes. This is after my parent had major surgery, I felt like my parent and I were being totally disregarded.

I contacted our doctor who I believe had concerns about several of the medications. As I understand it, our doctor tried to contact The Alfred and received no reply. I left 5 messages over 3 days for The Alfred and also received no reply.

Last night my parent collapsed at home and was taken by ambulance to a different hospital where they assessed that the fluid tablets that were prescribed by who I feel are so-called doctors at The Alfred, were an excessively high dose for them, placed a great strain on their kidneys and depleted them of so much fluid that they collapsed and were unable to even move.

In my opinion, the staff at The Alfred that I interacted with make many excuses and clearly make unacceptable mistakes. I feel this is not acceptable when you are responsible for people's lives. I feel the staff at the different hospital were amazing, they assessed the medications and gained my parent's Alfred files. I had 3 calls from doctors in a 3-hour period and the doctor in charge called me at 12.30 am to give me a full update.

My conclusion, this other hospital cares. Based on my experience, I do not feel this hospital treats patients with dignity, respect and care.