'The Other Side of the System'

Hi All....

I've had an interesting week this week.....being a family member of someone on a major teaching hospital in Brisbane. My brother had the unfortunate event of being hit by a car late Monday night.....and apart from a open, communited distal femur fracture - is fine.

I have had the frustrating experience of trying to get information from the medical staff looking after him. I decided to phone the hospital on Wednesday as he had surgery on Tuesday regarding his fracture etc etc. SO I got the nurse who was supposedly looking after him.....I told her that I was in Perth, nearly graduated physio etc etc and that I did not have a very clear picture from my parents. Turns out the nurse didn't either - she told me he had an ORIF on his R hip the day before (it's L distal femur) and when I said I'd heard distal femur...she said 'yeah, ORIF'd femur - very informative.....I asked her if she was aware of the plan for treatment as my parents had said it was to be a series of surgeries.....she was very honest and said 'nuh'. I then asked her if she could put me through/give me information as to who were the doctors looking after him.....to which she didn't know if he was under the 'trauma' team or the 'orthopaedic' team....again - very helpful.

I can not tell you how frustrated I was when I got off the phone to this lady...and how hard it was to convince myself that Dylan's getting decent care in Brisbane....even though I've worked on the ward of the 'Perth equivalent' and know that ppl do get good care. It is so upsetting to even myself and as a health professional I suppose I didn't really realise how upset I'd be if something traumatic happened to one of my family......so I have a little more empathy (and time) for family members of patients now!

Anyway, I will call again and hopefully find out some more information!

Madeleine