"Terrible handling of transferred patient"

My child was taken to our local Busselton Hospital at early hours of the morning with severe abdominal pain. After receiving amazing, immediate & constant care for 11hours they were transferred to Bunbury Regional Hospital ED department. I offered to transport them myself to take the pressure off the Ambulance system.

We went straight there and had to start the whole admission to ED again (which took about an hour) then taken to Fast Track Section of ED where there weren’t any seats so we were put into FT8 (office/treatment room) & my child was asked to get into the bed which had a used/dirty disposable sheet and Pillow case half hanging off pillow. Nurses came into room on two occasions to use computer and discuss bed options in ED but they did not acknowledge my child or myself. Nurse came back to check my child's Blood pressure and said the surgical review team would come and see them.

After some time I pressed nurse button as my child was freezing cold, they were handed a blanket that was left on a chair in the waiting room. Surgical team came and checked my child and said they would have to go get further instructions on if needing surgery. Asked for nurse's assistance as my child's anxiety was getting bad as such a long time had gone past & asked what was the outcome of the surgical review. Nurse stated they would find out. They returned around 6pm with drip bag and said that they would admit my child, give them antibiotics and observe them overnight and decide on surgery in morning.

My child had been fasting since 10am as was told might have surgery that day. I asked if they could have something to drink and eat, I recall the nurse said they would get my child a cup of tea, they returned to check my child's blood pressure around 6.20pm and I had to ask again for the drink and food as still hadn’t come. Another staff member brought back sandwich and juice around 6.20pm… we were left in this room for quite some time and my child was able to fall asleep for some time and I grabbed myself a blanket out of the waiting room. At 11.50pm my child's drip monitor started beeping as had run out of fluid. This woke them up and we rang for nurse… no one came… my child needed the toilet so we decided to go out and find the toilet and noticed all the corridors were very dark and no one around. A nurse asked while I was waiting for my child if we are ok, I said no we need someone to come turn my child's alarm off. They said they would go get someone.. no one came. We went back to room and pushed nurse bell again… no one came… around 12.20am I heard someone in corridor and went to ask if anyone was working in this area, they said they had all gone home.. told them my child had not been checked on or attended to since 6.20pm and the staff member said they would go get someone. Nurses from ED came in and took my child to the ED department got them a clean bed and warm blankets and attended to them very quickly, apologising extremely for what had happened and explained they were told the Fast Track Section was emptied. 

At 2.50am my child was transferred to surgical ward for admission where I was told I had to leave. (I had been in hospital since 2.30am and had to travel over 50km to get home) was told I could come back as soon as I liked in the morning.

I was told on phone approx 7am that my child had been reviewed and was going to have surgery and to ring back in a few hours to see what time but I couldn’t see them until after surgery.

Rang at 9am, I was told my child was awaiting blood results to see if having surgery. Ring back in a few hours.

Rang at 11.30am, told awaiting doctors to review to see if having surgery but if myself and my child's partner wanted to come see them we could and they would be able to leave the day surgery unit and sit in the hospital grounds.

My child messaged me to see when we would visit as they were getting stressed/anxious as they hadn’t decided, hadn’t taken their blood yet nor had they been offered any food or water so still fasting. 

When we arrived at the hospital we were not allowed past the Covid tent and asked what we wanted. Explained my child was in the day surgery unit and we were there to either visit them or pick them up depending on what had been decided.

My child was bought to the front of the hospital and had to leave the hospital grounds to have a visit with their family. I took them for a drive to the beach to spend some time with their partner and as you would expect they were both becoming very upset as no decision had still been made on if or not a surgery would be done or my child would be able to come home (approx 2.30pm) I rang the hospital spoke to day surgery and asked if a decision could be made asap as my child's anxiety was at a peak and they were not wanting to return to the hospital.

Terrible terrible handling of a transferred patient from one hospital to another. I believe this was not from lack of staff, in my opinion, it was from very poor handling of an extremely anxious patient.