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"Dermatology checks after chemo and radiation treatment"

About: Kununurra Hospital / Allied Health

(as the patient),

I had a SCC in my neck and this was treated with Chemo and radiation a couple years ago.  I now have six monthly checkups with one being with Dermatology.

Several months ago, I had an appointment at Kununurra hospital and it was a telehealth.

The Dermatologist asked me what the appointment was for and I said a skin check to which they replied that they don't know how this is going to work, to which I agreed.  I had an issue with a spot on my nose which kept bleeding and the new doctor with me took a photo and send to the Dermatologist who said to put me on the nicks and bumps list and that was the end of the consult.

I went back to my Doctor a couple of months later and we discussed my skin check and they rung the hospital who said I was to be seen the following month.  This has now been and gone and at the end of the following month I was in Perth and managed to get an after hours appointment with skin check WA to review my nose.  They took a scraping and have now come back saying it is ulcerated insitu SCC and needs to be removed ASAP and it requires a skin graft.

To this day I've had no follow up from anyone in Dermatology and the fight to get this fixed starts.

My Doctor wants me to go back to Perth to get this operated on by people in this field who are qualified and experienced in these procedures but the Local hospital want me to go to a skin clinic and get some local doctor to do the procedure which I'm definetinley not comfortable with, and considering I've been waiting 4 months for the health system to work and had to go and sort out the issue at my expense and time I'm pretty angry that it's gotten to this as I spent a week in Perth doing medicals etc.

I'm annoyed with what I feel is the lack of care and attention after repeated prompting that I must now sit here and hope it doesn't spread while the health system seemingly stuffs me around even more and contemplates using a Doctor to perform this procedure that my Doctor doesn't recommend.

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Responses

Response from WACHS Kimberley 16 months ago
Submitted on 13/12/2022 at 3:13 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 3:36 PM


Dear the last frontier,

I am concerned to read your story and learn about the difficulties you are facing in receiving care.

This must be a very worrying and frustrating time for you and I am very sorry that you have been left feeling uncared for. We don't want our patients and their families to be left feeling this way and we want to assure you that we will do our best to help you.

So that we can do this, I would appreciate it if you could contact myself, Dr Margaret Sturdy. I am the Senior Medical Officer at the Kununurra Hospital. Please feel free to email me on ek.smo@health.wa.gov.au and I will connect with you and support you in taking the next steps.

Thank you for taking the time to share your story with us. I do hope we hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Margaret Sturdy

Senior Medical Officer

Kununurra Hospital

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