Don't EVER get sick

[Nasty]

With the new hospital and upgrades there is going to be no increase in the number of beds, due to the move to community based care for people. Its all rather sick really.

I am glad to here that Vicki should get her surgery this morning .. quite thankful!!

[Owl]

maybe if we stopped paying idiot sports stars, pop stars and politicians huge undeserved salaries and put that money into Nurses, Teachers and cops.. our world would be a better place..

Yeah, make your own entertainment and give us back services!

I hope your wife gets through this ok Paul and yes, the health system is a shocker.

A mate of mine was sent home from A&E here after an asthma attack and only admitted on a second attempt.
Thing’s get cloudy, but apparently he was struggling to breathe that first night, couldn’t get help and got out of bed to reach his medication. He collapsed for an unknown amount of time, only to be found unconscious on the floor.
He was put on life support for a few days while they checked for brain activity, but unfortunately he’d starved of oxygen too long!!!
The bit that I still don’t understand is why they never bothered to contact his wife after he was found. She arrived at the hospital in the morning to see her husband hopefully feeling better. Her last conversation with him was in A&E!

[SARGE]

Yeah, make your own entertainment and give us back services!

maybe Amy Winehouse should hire her own med staff and stop sucking the life out of the medical profession..

im perfectly capable of entertaining myself..2 bikes, a garden, the interrdweeb and a bug zapper

[Paul in NZ]

Thing’s get cloudy, but apparently he was struggling to breathe that first night, couldn’t get help and got out of bed to reach his medication. He collapsed for an unknown amount of time, only to be found unconscious on the floor.

I have not covered the things I'm most angry about because I'm not sure of my thinking on them but your story does not amaze me... Their eyes glide over you in the waiting areas, very keen not to lock stares as if to be sure not to acknowledge your pain or your humanity, hard to remain impartial if you do - yes, it's not a factory but it's not a meat market either.... Not very nice

[FROSTY:Me]

Yadda yadda health system etc etc --FUCK THAT ---is Vicky now ok mate?????

[Swoop]

Let us hope that Vicki has a good experience with the health system today!

I have a holy horror of the NZ public health system.

We have excellent private A&E clinics and hospitals. I cannot imagine why anyone in this country who is not destitute would choose to exist without medical insurance.

I am led to believe that even if you have private insurance, yet are forced to call for an ambulance, the public system has you in their grip and will do everything to prevent you attempting to escape to a private horsepiddle.

[Lissa]

Dont get me started on our Health System.

My dad had a horror time with his back problems a few years ago. There is nothing worse than seeing your father lying in bed, unable to move and the doctors doing nothing to help him and hes in tears begging you to end his life.

All this when I was eight months pregnant, my mum was out of town and my dad was unable to move at all, or go to the toilet because of the pain relief used, so he was in pain from his back and his bladder.

Got the doctor to make a house call and he did nothing, was fucked off!! In the end an ambulance was called, dad went to the hospital only to be man handled by the nurse who thought that his only problem was the bladder and made his back pain worse (all because they cant read a ferken chart!)... infact told my father off for complaining about the pain! Then he was told he had prostrate cancer when he didnt. Blah, I dont want to get sick.

I hope everything goes well for Vicki!

[Clivoris]

The whole experience must suck shit Paul. I hope it works out mate.

[jrandom]

I am led to believe that even if you have private insurance, yet are forced to call for an ambulance, the public system has you in their grip...

Ker rect.

This is why I have issued instructions to all around me that unless there is no alternative, I am to be driven, taxi'd or wheeled on a skateboard to a private clinic if I ever fuck myself up.

[riffer]

Sigh. Know how you feel Paul. Gini has sarcoidosis (which mysteriously flared straight after they gave her a hysterectomy to "cure" her chronic endometriosis).

Problem is, it causes her to have recurrent chronic pneumonia every winter, and she spends a couple weeks every winter (two, maybe three stays).

Of course, it's always 36 hours before she gets up to a ward after collapsing at home and me calling the ambulance.

I now have the routine pretty much down pat, including emergency insulin and food supplies in case of hyper- or hypo-glycaemic attacks.

It sucks.

Best wishes to Vicki and hope for her fast recovery.

[Jaxi]

Paul, I hope Vicky is ok, there is nothing worse than watching helplessly as your loved ones are in pain.

I'm in the UK and whilst everyone over her complains about the NHS, our experience of late has been awesome. My husband saw his GP for a dodgy mole, one week later it was excised, then when the (bad) results came back a week later, he was told that it could be up to 6 weeks before they could schedule him in for a wider excision and sentinel lymph node biopsy....

We thought about going private (paying for it as we don't have health insurance) but even then it would have been a good couple of weeks wait. A week and a half into the 6 weeks, he was called on a Wednesday asked to come in on the Sunday with Surgery on the Monday. Job done. The hospital treatment that my husband received could not be faulted, maybe we were there on a good couple of days!

Just waiting for the results, hopefully we caught the melanoma quick enough.

Family and friends in NZ have tried to convince us to come back home for treatment. I think we've made the right decision to stay here for now.

[Paul in NZ]

Well - an lumpy old day ranging from utter horror to pathetic gratitude.

I know it's hard to retain staff but you would think with patients waiting for critical operations and high on drugs that english comprehension and basic nursing skills (like being able to find a fucking vein) would be qualifiers?

Looking at 3 of the fuckers at the end of the bed while Vicki writhes in pain from a botched pain relief admin missing the vein and swelling her arm up like a balloon and having to point it out to them and them still not doing anything??? UN fucking believable - they were saved by igor the orderly (where do they get these people and are tatoos and an utter inability to talk mandatory) arriving with programing to pick up body a and transport it to the theatre regardless of its current condition... He was efficient in a golum mindless thug fashion... The caused the cannibal trio to lapse into a huddle the only bit of which I heard was 'It's better if they do it' (translation = it took the theatre team time to stabilise her enough to operate on the now massive problem which was a small problem a day or so back)

So - post op - different world. GREAT care, considerate staff and a floaty vicki high on the wonders of morphine and writing beatles songs in the air while she communes with her pumpkin coloured yogi.... Bitch wouldnt share either...

Anyway - she is safe now and cared for so I can sleep and wonder if I still have a job left?

Look - the staff kind of do their best - half are recent immigrants and half are so traumatised by the horror of the place they are numb and a few are kind souls on a path to sainthood. The system however is an abomination - if you value your families lives change it.... I can easily see how people die there needlessly - the cannibal 3 had NO idea what to do when vicki collapsed in pain due to their ineptitude other than make fucking sure it was NOT on her notes (I checked)

Seriously - is this good enough? An administration that will ping you for 111kph and allow citizens to die through neglect? Do you want this - I fuckin don't - this system needs to change - it could be your old mum stuck in a corridor with garbage bag man next...

The measure of the place - the nurse INSISTING I take her wedding band home so it won't get nicked - fuck me - I can't talk, I wear NO jewerly at all but it aint left her side in 28 years and now it has to for security - sad.....

[chanceyy]

this system needs to change - it could be your old mum stuck in a corridor with garbage bag man next...

ah yes Paul several yrs ago my mum ended up in Hamilton hospital .. so left work & started the quick dash up north found out when I was about a hour out that she was being "released" for the weekend but had to go back on sunday & have a wee investigation on the monday ..

I arrived & advised staff at A & E I was there to pick up my mom .. they told me to wander in that direction til I "found" her .. on the way out she wanted a wee detour to the toilet before we headed back to Te Aroha (bout 40 mins away) and we had to pass a number of ppl on beds in the corridor.

There were a number of elderly ppl in real distress being comforted by loved ones out in the corridors as there simply was not anywhere else to have them. I only found out later that my mother had a rectal exam in the corridor with a half screen around her as they did not have anywhere private to do it. To say my elderly mother was mortified & I was livid was probably an understatement.

This was somehow made worse when we turned up on sunday with admittance forms to the ward to be told that they had not received any paperwork & were not even expecting her. That took a hour to resolve.

however once in the ward the care was exceptional.

In constrast when she had her hip replaced last yr privately she certainly paid for the care but by god what care she got .. Mind you it helped that one of the Kbers worked there & also made sure that both my parents & myself were very well cared for

I know that there are horror stories all over NZ ... so how best to change it ??

[pete376403]

You're going to copy these notes to Tony Ryall, correct?

Glad to hear a good outcome, even though getting there was so traumatic.

[Paul in NZ]

You're going to copy these notes to Tony Ryall, correct?

Glad to hear a good outcome, even though getting there was so traumatic.

Yes - a good outcome but why so hard? Its a bit like a biker living through a 300kph blast through the streets of a city - what were you worried about??? Nothing really bad happened?

The possibility of BAD happenened many many times and it was a combination of dumb luck and Vickis fortitude that prevailed....

The theme of my thead is well chosen - don't get sick and if you do DON'T go to hospital and if you have to - call a bloody ambulance, at least you by pass the ogre on triage... I really don't remember voting for this, but I've seen us (middle class kiwis) being ripped and raped in my own field so I can only guess..

Aw fugit - off to bed - 3 days without sleep its too much... soooo. tired....