"Surgery for ruptured biceps tendon at Royal Perth Hospital"

I was finally able to receive my surgery to much great relief. The procedure itself was straightforward and proceeded without any problems. It felt good to finally receive the care I required, even if it was somewhat later than I would have liked. Currently I am undergoing rehabilitation and I have not experienced any issues so far, so I believe credit is deserved to the quality of the surgical team. Healing so far has been textbook perfect. The nursing and rehab Post-surgical outpatient teams at RPH have been very good.

There are a few elements I would like to comment on with view towards improvement and constructive criticism:

I think the gap between scheduled arrival time at hospital and actual surgery is very large. For me this was 6 hours waiting time total inside the hospital. This would have been no real problem in itself except that I was instructed according to early daytime surgery scheduling: which means complete fasting from midnight the night previously. Arriving at 9:30AM and only going in at 3:30PM makes this a very long fast indeed. It also would not have been too much of a problem if upon waking from surgery around 8:30PM I could have broken my fast. Unfortunately I was informed the kitchen was now closed and no food was available. 

At this point fasting for over 20 hours and fresh out of surgery is more difficult to handle. In my experience, I can say with certainty that for a patient coming right out of surgery, beyond immediate pain relief, the only other major pressing concern is hunger! I was not the only patient in this situation. I understand the person across from me (who had gone in at a similar time) was also complaining of hunger. In my opinion, it is unfortunate that the only thing the nurse could seemingly muster was a single small serving yoghurt/pudding for them. It would be amazing to see this problem properly addressed in future, that patients coming out of surgery could have some good, healthy and nutritious food available for them. Because I believe this unfortunate patient across from me had to wait until tomorrow morning for a breakfast tray, and their fast would have likely exceeded mine well over 24 hours without food since they were admitted the same time as me the previous early morning.

I feel I was more fortunate than this other patient was because a friend of mine called me to enquire how I was doing post-surgery. I mentioned how hungry I was and he prepared food for me which I feel was a real lifesaver event. However he actually had to get creative with how he managed to get the food to me, since at this point visiting hours were officially over and I was told he would not even be able to get in. I am lucky that he was able to, otherwise I would have had a much rougher night. In my experience, it is difficult to have to deal with extreme hunger on top of extreme pain at once.

The only other thing I would point out with a view towards improvement is that there appears to be a general nurse shortage with only one nurse available to tend to three/four patients coming out of surgery. This makes it difficult to be tended to quickly, as they are already busy with two or three other patients simultaneously with just as great needs as your own. And in my experience, with the most pressing concern for a patient being pain relief, it is problematic if this basic most pressing need has to be left temporarily unattended and put on a back burner.

It is not exactly encouraging to be told you will be attended to in a minute, when you are moaning in pain. Then to have to try and continually explain that you are indeed in more pain than you can handle, that you in fact do really require additional pain relief a confusing and bewildering experience for a patient coming out of anaesthesia in my experience. I find it is difficult to process and think at best. Once I was finally attended to, I was told I had “already” received Tramadol pain relief.

For me, it was confusing and uncomfortable to have doubt placed onto what is an intense experience, as if perhaps you the patient may be mistaken, as if maybe your experience of pain is not entirely legitimate. I had to explain as best I could that clearly whatever I had been given already was inadequate, I could not even feel any relief from it.

Fortunately, this situation was rectified fairly promptly, I was given a single morphine tablet and this was adequate to get me through the night. I do not blame the nurse however, I feel it is more a problem of understaffing and therefore too much pressure is placed on one person to try and deal with several complex moving parts at once.

Beyond those things I am happy to report my experience in the hospital and as outpatient has been positive. I am glad and relieved to have finally received my surgery that I required.