"Multiple bed changes"

I was admitted to Fiona Stanley Hospital to have a cancerous lymph node removed from my neck recently. My surgeon advised this is an involved operation which lasts 3-4 hours typically.

The experience going into surgery was excellent on all fronts - in terms of hospital coordination and staff performance, care and expertise. The post surgical experience started very well on the day of surgery however it deteriorated quite rapidly for me from day 2.

I think because I responded very well to the surgery and was up and mobile and in good health quite quickly, I was relocated to different beds 4 times in 2 days.

Despite being advised early in the morning on the day following surgery I was being moved from bed 1 to bed 2, I found myself waiting in a visitors waiting room with my bags while waiting for bed 2. I was only settled into bed 2 on another ward for about 30 minutes when I was told I was being relocated to bed 3 in a non-surgical wing (the rehab ward). When no porter showed up for some time (and just wanting to be in a bed and relax) my partner and I ended up carrying my bags over to bed 3 - a ward at the very opposite side of the hospital and some distance to walk.

On night 2, I believe one of the rehab nurses attending bed 3 started playing around unnecessarily with my fluid drain which was working fine up until then which resulted in it not working and as a result I woke the following morning with significant swelling at the surgery area. When the swelling was discovered accidentally (I passed a nurse in the hallway who stopped me and asked to look at it) and doctors and nurses were then mobilised from the original surgical ward, they discovered the drain line had been incorrectly attached by the rehab nurse and this stopped the vacuum drain working correctly. When a new drain was correctly attached a massive amount of fluid drained off quickly and my swelling went down.

The attending doctors and nurses from the surgical ward appeared horrified and alarmed at the chain of events and as a result I was moved later that day to bed 4 – back on the surgical ward. The following morning a sheepish looking nurse on the surgical ward came to tell me as a result of other patient activity, I was about to be wheeled into to hallway so they could free up my bed and move me to bed 5 when they worked out where that was. That is 5 bed moves in 48 hours.

While I understand the need to triage patients based on their clinical presentation, moving patients around in a very uncoordinated way multiple times immediately following an involved surgery I feel is very unprofessional from the hospital administration perspective and is not meeting basic patient care standards.

On the day of my discharge, while my partner and I were waiting in yet another public visitors waiting room with my belongings, a ward clerk got into a discussion with my partner when I wasn’t in earshot and essentially asked what my issue was! The ward clerk was quick to advise how many people were currently in ED needing beds, the clear message being to stop complaining, as the hospital administrators are doing whatever they need to do to get people into beds.

That last conversation sums up for me what I feel is clearly an issue at this hospital. In my opinion, hospital administrators, with their hospital administration hats firmly on, don’t put themselves in the shoes of the patients they are caring for, nor do I believe they have the clinical expertise to be making certain decisions about the patient recovery journey. I wonder if the hospital administrators would be happy about themselves personally or one of their close family members going through the post-surgical experience I had?

I have been advised by clinical staff following my experience with the incorrectly adjusted wound drain that I was lucky it was picked up when it was and the outcome could have been much worse clinically.

I have to state the nursing staff and doctors were mostly outstanding and they are doing the best they can in what I feel is a less than ideal workplace.

I felt my surgeon basically talked me into going down the Fiona Stanley public path because of the after surgery care aspect, however with the benefit of hindsight, I would take another option - that would be to go through the private system.