My father attended the Wonthaggi Emergency Department twice in 2 days - sent home the first time and admitted to the ward the second time.
The doctor took my sibling and I aside and said it would be unkind to give him a CV line and inotropes. The doctor did not say my father needed specialist treatment to live. He languished for a week, his condition worsening by the day - near death at times.
When he became critical and we were told he had a multi-organ failure and was going to die, my father told me he felt too good and was too young to die. He was a whole decade younger than his parents and brothers were when they died.
He trusted the doctors and the hospital. My sibling and I are both nurses and feel we also let him down. We feel that he was written off as a sick poor old man. He was immeasurably more than this. He was delightful and irreplaceable and had many years left to live. We are profoundly disappointed that he was denied the care he needed, and how traumatic his final days were.
The Specialist medical staff who cared for him in the ambulance to Melbourne and at the other hospital indicated he was a good candidate for intensive intervention and that he could survive. I believe he may have if treated earlier. I have completely lost confidence in rural hospitals, especially the Wonthaggi hospital.
My sibling and I were not given the option of sending him to a Melbourne hospital or given the key information that he would die without treatment at a tertiary hospital.
I look forward to your reply.
"My parent's treatment and untimely death"
About: Wonthaggi Hospital Wonthaggi Hospital Wonthaggi 3995
Posted by Not my name (as ),
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