"Care from staff and language barrier"

My father is 91 years old. He went to the hospital for an eye checkup at the outpatient in Sydney Eye Hospital and while waiting for the eye specialist he was feeling quite sick. They checked and found out that he had covid. He had a fall 2 weeks ago and was very frail and old so he stayed at the hospital for a week in isolation. My father is suffering from hearing loss, vision loss and his communication isn’t very good as he had a stroke years ago so it was a challenging time for him by himself without his partner for 7 days.

In his situation, being so frail and very sick, the family were very worried but the nurse and social worker Beata the ward 2 East confirmed and assured us that they would look after him and help him and support him.

Every day we called in, the nurse reported on activities of the support team thoroughly in detail. Doctor Amanda also called me to report his medical condition to me. Everyone, on all different levels, contacted us and provided us with updates. It was just amazing. They are all just so caring

Beata the social worker called me several times to update me and asked to connect me to any network that my family can seek for support. They’ve also talked to my aged care service provider for my father to confirm and to get the reassurance that they will continue giving the physio to help with my father’s rehabilitation.

Also, Beata organised a hospital transfer to help transport him home after 7 days isolation because he lives quite far away so they kindly organised that so we are so grateful. It’s been a blessing for his time staying at the hospital. His partner also asked me to give a huge and heartfelt appreciation to the hospital. None of the family members had to come to the hospital, the hospital organized everything; transport home, medication, instructions. The social worker even contacted me several times just to inform me the transport had come a bit later than the scheduled time and just wanted to make sure my family were okay and knew every detail. Beata gave all the guidance from the moment he was admitted into hospital to the minute he was discharged. She was just so helpful.

The hospital was also so patient with the language barrier. My father’s partner doesn’t speak English so there was a real language barrier between my father, his partner, and the hospital. It was quite an effort. This is the best hospital ever I’ve been to.

We just felt so blessed.