"Poor treatment after surgery"

I went in to Joondalup Private Hospital for day surgery with general anaesthetic. I was wheeled in at mid morning. Everything went well by that point. I was then wheeled back to the ward by mid afternoon. I had an efficient young nurse who filled out my paperwork. There were lots of nurses running around but the ward was empty and there were hardly any patients. One of the nurses came and picked my stuff up and placed in on my bed. They also placed clean linens on all the beds including mine. I thought this was unhygienic because I was still lying on my bed with the current linens and they’ve put clean ones on the used linens.

One of the nurses came and said they’re going to ring my spouse while I got dressed. By the time I was ready to go this nurse was nowhere to be seen. I then saw a person with dark clothes on the ward. I walked up to them and said I’m ready to go. I felt like no one wanted to take me downstairs because they were all too busy. Then a young nurse said I’ll take you downstairs, I’m going on my lunch break now anyway. On our way to the lifts they grabbed a water bottle for themselves. While we were in the lifts the nurse got off on a different floor and handed me my discharge papers and instructed me to go down to the ground floor by myself because they have to go on lunch.

When I got downstairs I couldn’t find my spouse who was picking me up. I thought they might be in the car so I waited in the lounge area. I still couldn’t see my spouse after a while so I walked around looking for them. I was still tired and weak from the anaesthetic but I walked around both the public and private hospitals four times. I went back to the private hospital and a reception staff called out to me and said I was not allowed to be at that waiting area. I let them know that I was looking for my spouse. I’m a senior citizen and I was tired from walking around. The staff member who called out to me who I felt was very rude kept saying, you can’t be here, this area is for patients only. I kept begging them to help me and that I was looking for my spouse but they wouldn’t listen to me and kept saying the area is for patients only. I showed them my discharge papers which were tucked under my arm. I also raised my hand to show my wrist band but she thought I was going to attack her and she backed off. They then told me to sit down and wait. While I was waiting I wanted to move my bag out of the way because it was on the floor and someone could trip over it. The same rude staff member came up to me and said for me not to pick up my own bag because I will hurt myself but I explained why I wanted to move it. I was given some water while I was waiting which was good. I then heard, in my opinion, shouting across the room from this staff member saying, Is this your spouse? which it was. They then continued to tell off another staff member about how patients shouldn’t discharge themselves so they were talking about me. I wanted to tell them how rude they were towards me but they talked over me and said you’ve found your spouse so you can leave now. That staff member never apologised to me.

I said to my spouse that if something happens to me and need to be taken to  Joondalup Hospital I would rather die in the ambulance. I feel that we, older people, are becoming invisible and I would not go back to Joondalup Hospital ever again.