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Care Opinion

Hospital Discharge

Posted By swingbr87

"Hospital Discharge"

About: Myrtleford Hospital

(as a carer),

Hospital care at another hospital and Alpine Health Myrtleford was very caring and attentive. The meals at Alpine Health Myrtleford are, in my opinion, 50% ok and 50% terrible vegetables hard that my parent in their late 90s could not eat and cold potato chips. No diabetic meals provided.

I felt discharge was an absolute safety mess. No family member telephoned to advise us that a clinician was bringing my parent home for a home visit and leaving them there. My parent's medications were left at the hospital and no one rang a family member to tell us. We did not know what dosage of warfarin they needed to take. Lucky my parent in law had some medication at home. Very poor communication from the hospital in my opinion.

When we called looking for medications the nursing staff member said a summary of medications and doses was sent home but we looked and there was nothing. I felt the staff member didn’t believe us and was unable to help us further. We had to contact doctors office the next day to sort it out and advised my parent's discharge was apparently a safety nightmare and but acceptable. Doctor told us to go to the hospital and make a complaint.

I am too busy looking after my elderly parent to ring around and make complaints.

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Responses

Response from Lisa Townsend, Director of Clinical Operations, Myrtleford Hospital & Barwidgee Lodge, Alpine Health nearly 2 years ago
Lisa Townsend
Director of Clinical Operations, Myrtleford Hospital & Barwidgee Lodge,
Alpine Health

Submitted on 27/04/2023 at 4:08 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 4:35 PM

Dear swingbr87,

Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback about the care your elderly parent received at Myrtleford Hospital. I am very sorry to hear of your recent experience.

In response to the meals related feedback, Lisa our Essential Services Coordinator will respond in due course.

All meals served at Alpine health are suitable for individuals with diabetes with the addition that if a person is a diabetic it is noted on the dietary preference advice form so that the person receives sandwiches for supper.

In relation to the discharge planning, I am very sorry to hear of the poor communication associated with the home visit and discharge medications. On rare occasions some patients stay at home after home visits to be as person centered in our approach as possible, but I acknowledge this was not ideal in your parent’s situation. We are always striving to improve our discharge planning and medication processes, and I would like to invite you to contact me directly to discuss your situation further so that we can learn from this.

Your feedback is very important to us and will help to improve our processes, and I will provide further education to staff around making discharge safer through better communication and ensuring medications are returned to patients before discharging home.

Yours sincerely,

Lisa Townsend

Nurse Unit Manager

03 5751 9379

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Response from Lisa Lucey, Essential Services Coordinator, Alpine Health nearly 2 years ago
Lisa Lucey
Essential Services Coordinator,
Alpine Health

Submitted on 28/04/2023 at 9:14 AM
Published on Care Opinion at 10:05 AM

Dear swingbr87,

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the food experience your parent received from Alpine Health.

As a class one food facility we must cook all our menu items very well to ensure our food is safe to eat, which normally makes them “overcooked”, but easy for elderly clients to consume. Some vegetables can stay hard even though they are well cooked, like Brussel sprouts, and this is due to the seasonality of the vegetable.

We do use equipment designed to keep all our meals hot for a period of time, but in your case, I'm sorry to hear, this did not happen.

This feedback will be discussed with the site-based leader at Myrtleford to ensure that all vegetables provided to clients are suitable and the meals are kept as hot as possible without compromising on flavour.

Diabetic meals are incorporated into our daily menu, and this is closely monitored by Alpine Health’s directly employed Dietitian to ensure that the menu is both diverse and nutritious and reflective of client health need and preferences. We appreciate that some menu items, particularly the deserts, may not be what you might normally have at home but when eaten with our other menu items across the day are able to be consumed by diabetics. There is always a choice, and we would have happily accommodated another request.

This feedback is important to us and will be discussed at our next food services committee meeting to ensure improvement on our service. Again, thank you for taking to time to tell us about your experience.

Kind Regards

Lisa Lucey

Essential Services Coordinator

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