"Information after discharge"

I am an elderly patient and recently I was at emergency of this hospital with a prolapse which I found out on that day it was of the bladder. I had a hysterectomy about 50 years ago, I was fitted with a pessary and sent home and told to return if I couldn’t pass urine or if it fell out and come back for a review in 3 months I was given a script for Ovestin cream to use twice a week and they would send information on the appointment etc by email. I had never had a pessary before and even my prior nursing knowledge didn’t help me. I was in quite a bit of pain and distress so attended my local doctor about a week later to get a referral to a gynaecologist.

I phoned the specialist to make an appointment and informed them a referral had been sent but was told they were deciding whether to see me or not. I had nothing given to me in writing on discharge from KEMH so waited for the email to come for further information but it never came. So a few days later I was in considerable pain and not able to defecate so my child took me to emergency at KEMH I cannot fault the doctors and nursing staff they were great and it was then I was told I was to have a nurse remove the pessary every week for a clean and other information I had not been given on my previous admission.

On reflection when they inspected the pessary they knew I hadn’t had a chance to remove and clean it they should have done it for me then. I was given no information or shown how to remove the pessary myself or how or where I was to get a nurse to come out weekly it is just lucky that I have someone to help me with this. But not all elderly people have this knowledge or home help so I feel it was very remiss of them to have not queried this. I believe it would be so helpful if you had a print out on the subject instead of relying on email information being sent out that it seems to me never gets sent.