"High quality of care was not what we received"

A few weeks ago, my partner attended KRH after falling and twisting their knee the day before. Their knee was extremely swollen, bruised and painful and kept giving way. They were sent for an xray and advised that there was no fracture and could be some ligament damage and to take it easy. I recall my partner was sent home with nothing to support their knee, no bandage, tubigrip or brace. If my partner had a twist injury and likely tear to their knee, why did they not do an ultrasound?

After a few days of falling over due to their knee giving way, my partner went to their GP who ordered an urgent ultrasound of their knee. The finding was that my partner seemingly had a full thickness tear (meaning the tendon was ripped off the bone) on their knee as well as joint effusion (fluid in the joint, which I understand also caused them to develop a bakers cyst).

My partner was sent back over to ED where they recall they waited for 5 and a half hours to be told that they would need surgery to fix it. My partner was so hungry and thirsty so asked for something to eat. I understand, someone went away to get them something and never came back.

I think that this is inadequate care and should not have happened. I believe one of the core values in WA health is providing safe, high-quality care, constantly striving to innovate, improve and achieve trust in our care. I do not think you provided safe care to my partner- In my opinion sending them home without any support on their knee was down right dangerous.

I believe that if my partner’s knee had given way and they hit their head this could have been catastrophic. In my opinion, I would definitely not consider having a patient wait for what I believe was 5 and a half hours with not even a drink of water high quality care. My partner will now have surgery in the next couple of days which I believe should have been done when the injury happened.