St John of God Murdoch Hospital Emergency Room — Local services in Murdoch

Can't mark this lower, An allegedly Christian Hospital My Mother-in-Law, spent 52 hours in this ED after the wonderful assessing doctor, who spent the whole day checking on her and several of the nurses commented on his competence, had her admission prepared and we were just waiting for a bed.

I was surprised when we arrived that the triage nurse said to the patient before us that if there are any complications you will have to go across the road to Fiona Stanley as the was no-one from orthopedics here today. Then for some reason they said to us there was no-one from neurology here, we were just asking for help with a suspected UTI. Private hospitals = no specialities after hours or on weekends.

The next morning another doctor vetoed the admission unless we signed a NFR (Not for Resuscitation) for her due to her age. She then openly, publicly and repeatedly criticized the original doctor for preparing the admission. This one action showed me the unprofessional attitude of the lead staff, and attitude reflects leadership.

My M-i-L had survived a stroke several months ago attributed to her atrial fibrillation and was rehabilitating when this infection happened. So, there was several important medications she had to have regularly for her A-fib and anticoagulants to prevent another stroke. We asked if these medications had been given, but could never get an answer, some of the medications were not even charted for use, this action borders on criminal to me.

There was a medication incident with the nurse the next day for critical post stroke medication that has by all appearances not been reported and investigated.

There were claims that her condition had deteriorated, these were not true. My M-i-L had been given heavy doses of antibiotic, which makes you drowsy and on top of that she had been unable to sleep the night before due to discomfort, this why she was difficult to rouse, this was confirmed by the hospital manager that night when I spoke to him. There was also a claim of confusion, which can often accompany a UTI as a symptom this was also confirmed by the hospital manager.

The doctors then refused to contact another hospital to allow a transfer to a hospital without an NFR. We then had to have her discharged with us and then the hospital the stated we had discharged against medical advice (DAMA), this was even after the refusal to admit her or transfer her to another hospital.

I arrived to see her and was not allowed in, I asked to speak to her and was refused, I asked to speak to the coordinator and an executive and was asked to wait, which I did patiently, neither of them came out to see me and sent a message through one of the discharging nurses that they would no longer be prepared to speak to any of us.

All told, the first day was great as my M-i-L was getting appropriate treatment, but the next day and a half was worse than any nightmare. I have no confidence in the overly competitive nature these doctors have shown, and the willingness to belittle and demean a colleague and the deliberate ignorance of some of the nurses, shows that the behaviors border on negligence.

Her treatment was against the values espoused by the hospital charter.

I would not recommend a visit, even if you very sick, it is another example of why private emergency rooms are a very bad idea.

When my M-I-L came out she said thank goodness, I thought they were trying to kill me off.

We will question her later as to what she...

Ok… so first of all they dont advertise their wait times for a reason. We received a call from our long time doctor saying that there was an emergency due to potassium levels in a family members blood test and that we urgently needed to rush to emergency because they were at risk of a heart attack. We arrived and it seemed quiet. They triaged after 30 minutes and told us to sit down, after another 30 minutes we were called up to pay the $295 fee associated with using their emergency department. What you don’t notice until AFTER you have paid is the strategically placed screen that tells you there’s a 4+ hour wait time until you’ve been moved from the triage area to the waiting area after payment. The staff also did not inform us of the estimated wait times. What the heck are we paying near $300 for to not be seen for that long when we could have gone public for free when the wait times were only 62 minutes. For context being told this was an emergency this was our closest hospital. To make matters worse hardly any new patients were taken in the few hours that we’ve been here so we have been with the same group of people and only a few have been seen in such a long time . I’ve noticed that there also only seems to be ONE DOCTOR SEEING PEOPLE. I understand that the hospital can be short staffed but this is absolutely ridiculous in an emergency department. Not only this but the $295 is not claimable on Medicare or private health, any blood tests and scans are also an un-claimable additional fee up to $450 on top of the $295 they charge you to “be triaged and given any medications” ONLY COME HERE AS A...

My husband had a GP appointment with our regular GP whom, due to his symptoms, had told him to go to the private emergency instead of the public one and she would send a letter for him to be seen right away as she thought his condition could worsen. He ended up waiting for hours on end, needed to do some blood tests and they couldn’t find the vein, took them 6 gos to finally get one! Then other scans etc and he waited for hours afterwards to get his results. the doctors and nurses in the mean time were just chatting and having a laugh in the staff room next to his bed, He kept asking them how long until the results would be ready and they said they didn't know and then proceeded with their chats and giggles. in the end he told them he was leaving and lo and behold the test results magically appear in seconds! they had apparently been ready for hours but no one could be bothered reading them to him! turns out the tests were inconclusive and they told him he needed to do more tests but they didn't have the means to do them so he should go to Fiona Stanley's ED and start the process all over again including the tests they had just done which were inconclusive. to be seen at Fiona Stanley would be another 11 hours wait time in the waiting room. all of this cost us about $300 out of pocket even having private health…appalling! just appalling! when you are willing to pay extra for a private hospital you would expect some higher level of care but I guess they’re not really interested in helping others just pocketing...