"Treatment for neck and back fractures"

I went to the emergency department in a hard neck collar after having a fall overseas and returning to Perth my gp advised to go to the ED. I was put on a hard trolley at midday and asked to lay down flat on my back on a trolley against the wall in the hallway near where the ambulance officers enter. They asked me to swap the hard collar to a soft collar so the trainee nurse got this from my partner as we had one.

Half an hour later I asked if they could get it and put it on because I was so uncomfortable. The trainee said they have it but needed a nurse to do it and disappeared. Half an hour later I sat up and swapped it myself. It wasn't until around 3.30 a dr came and saw me and I said I was in a lot of pain and needed pain relief, as all the pain relief (Tramadol and anti-inflammatories I had from overseas had run out that morning) and I needed to use the bathroom. They wrote out the pain relief I needed and  said they would see about a room - they never returned.

After half an hour I called out for help and a different nurse saw me and said it looked like I had been forgotten about and immediately got me some tramadol. They checked in half an hr I still needed more relief. I was in a lot of pain I had also asked to go to the toilet again. It wasn't until I had been laying there in tears from 5-6pm when finally I was taken to a room to use a bed pan. This wasn't placed correctly so my top and undies and bed were all covered in urine.

A different nurse asked why I was in a soft collar and not a hard one, I advised them that is what I had been told to do and they asked by who and I said I didn't know as not one person has told me their name. I had a ct which showed 3 fractures in my neck and back - c2 and t4 and t5. At which point they gave me better pain relief and a long aspen collar. I was woken at 11.30 by my dr for checks.

I was then woken at 2am by two young nurses to put in a catheter which took them about 45 mins because they couldn't do it right. Why they didn't do it at 11.30 under Dr supervision is beyond me. I now have a UTI 5 days later which I'm confident is because of that.

They checked me out the next day with no dr seeing me and checking me out, just a Physio. The pain relief provided for home was just Tramadol and did absolutely nothing and I spent my first night at home in excruciating pain and was considering being taken to another hospital. The next morning we had a Telehealth consult with my GP who prescribed slow release anti inflammatory, stronger tramadol and diazepam. I said to my spouse they must be short staffed but they said they could see all the nurses standing at a station talking about personal things and whenever a patient pressed their buzzer for help it buzzed about 7-9 times before a nurse arrived. I will never go to this hospital again and would prefer to pay anything to go private not to have to be treated like just a number. It was such a traumatic and lonely experience.