Good morning Jeremy,
I know you are very busy on the campaign trail right now, so I won't bother you with trying to make an appointment for a face to face meeting. But my experience yesterday can not go unmentioned, and I would like you to keep it in mind when considering the joke that we call a health system.
As you already know, my daughter has serious medical complications. In November last year her plastic surgery and ear nose and throat (ENT) team made the decision to insert grommets in her ears to rectify a hearing loss problem. Since their insertion, Eleanor suffered from serious ear infections constantly, and at the end of December our GP did a swab test and discovered it was a staph infection. The seriousness of the infection meant that she was unable to have a vital surgery done in January, and our GP sent through an urgent referral to the ENT team in Hobart so that something could be done about it.
For almost three months our daughter has been in unbelievable pain. Any parent who has watched their child suffer from the pain of an ear infection will understand our anger at the situation. She has had two courses of ear drops and four courses of high-strength antibiotics, and touch wood, the infection is currently clear enough for her to finally have her next surgery next week.
Yesterday (19th) I opened my mail to finally receive a letter from the ENT outpatients clinic. For a few seconds I was ecstatic, we would have answers to the problem soon. But that all went out the window when I read the letter. An appointment had been made, without any communication with us, for us to be in Hobart at 10am on Monday 17th February. Yes, two days before we received the letter.
A system that sends appointments without confirming if it will work for the patient is unacceptable. Not only were we given no time to organise to upend our lives and travel to the other end of the state with two children, but the timing of the appointment would actually have meant we would have had to leave home on Sunday and spend a night in Hobart so as not to be forced to wake our young children up at 5am. Never mind that we didn't even know about the appointment until after it had passed.
I phoned the ENT clinic to advise them of their mistake, and offered the solution that Eleanor will be on the paediatric ward next week if the ENT specialist can come and see her on Tuesday. I want her to be seen prior to her surgery, because in my opinion the grommets need to come out and I don't want her to have to go through two lots of anaesthetic. However, I was told that it wouldn't happen, because the outpatient clinic simply can't organise appointments for inpatients. Rather than trying to work out a solution for me, the receptionist insisted that there were no doctors or nurses available today (yesterday) to talk to, and I would just have to ask for an ENT consult when we were on the ward next week. I have serious doubts now that we will in fact be able to get the grommets removed this trip.
I questioned the long wait for an appointment given that Eleanor's referral was urgent, only to be told that we were "quite lucky to get one at all". Lucky? One look at the pain my daughter has been in tells me she's far from lucky. Since when was luck a factor in obtaining health care? I insisted that someone who knew what was going on was to call me as soon as possible, because I was incredibly unhappy by that point.
The next person I spoke to was equally as unhelpful. All that she could add was that I would need to ask our plastic surgeon to request a consult with ENT, and then if, and only if, one was available, a registrar would come to the ward to see us. I questioned the lack of care that Eleanor has received from ENT. I had to demand someone come and see us on the ward after her grommets were inserted, and was told a number of times that it wasn't going to happen before someone finally appeared. There has been no follow up care, and when our GP requested a consult for a serious complication, it was ignored for almost two months. Funnily enough, all the woman on the phone could tell me was that if we were worried about any aspect of her care we should have our GP send a referral!
She also shared with me that the waiting list for appointments can be avoided, and suggested that had we taken her in to the emergency department in Hobart we would have been bumped to the top of the list. This to me reeks of favouring those who live in the south of the state; those of us living in the north of the state are being denied the care that is so important to keeping our children healthy, simply because of where we live. Hobart locals should not be getting prime positioning on waiting lists just because they are close by and can walk in to an emergency department with ease.
Our situation is far from rectified, and I will be calling a meeting next week with all of Eleanor's Hobart-based specialists to make sure that they know going forward what we expect from them. I am confident enough to do this, but I know that there are plenty of other families in the state who don't have this confidence, and who will accept this lack of medical care because they don't know what to do about it. These are the people I worry about.
I will be contacting members of parliament in the coming days to petition for a cleft coordinator, something that is available in many other states and organises all aspects of care for children like Eleanor who require care for a number of specialists but are situated outside of the area. I strongly believe that this service would greatly improve the level of care for children like Eleanor, and I'm sure you will agree when I compile the information.
We all know that the current health system in Tasmania is laughable. I think it's perhaps something that you don't really understand the consequences of until it is your family being put at risk. Something needs to change, and my family are hoping that the state liberals can bring some much needed relief.
Thank you,
Tracey Clark.
I know you are very busy on the campaign trail right now, so I won't bother you with trying to make an appointment for a face to face meeting. But my experience yesterday can not go unmentioned, and I would like you to keep it in mind when considering the joke that we call a health system.
As you already know, my daughter has serious medical complications. In November last year her plastic surgery and ear nose and throat (ENT) team made the decision to insert grommets in her ears to rectify a hearing loss problem. Since their insertion, Eleanor suffered from serious ear infections constantly, and at the end of December our GP did a swab test and discovered it was a staph infection. The seriousness of the infection meant that she was unable to have a vital surgery done in January, and our GP sent through an urgent referral to the ENT team in Hobart so that something could be done about it.
For almost three months our daughter has been in unbelievable pain. Any parent who has watched their child suffer from the pain of an ear infection will understand our anger at the situation. She has had two courses of ear drops and four courses of high-strength antibiotics, and touch wood, the infection is currently clear enough for her to finally have her next surgery next week.
Yesterday (19th) I opened my mail to finally receive a letter from the ENT outpatients clinic. For a few seconds I was ecstatic, we would have answers to the problem soon. But that all went out the window when I read the letter. An appointment had been made, without any communication with us, for us to be in Hobart at 10am on Monday 17th February. Yes, two days before we received the letter.
A system that sends appointments without confirming if it will work for the patient is unacceptable. Not only were we given no time to organise to upend our lives and travel to the other end of the state with two children, but the timing of the appointment would actually have meant we would have had to leave home on Sunday and spend a night in Hobart so as not to be forced to wake our young children up at 5am. Never mind that we didn't even know about the appointment until after it had passed.
I phoned the ENT clinic to advise them of their mistake, and offered the solution that Eleanor will be on the paediatric ward next week if the ENT specialist can come and see her on Tuesday. I want her to be seen prior to her surgery, because in my opinion the grommets need to come out and I don't want her to have to go through two lots of anaesthetic. However, I was told that it wouldn't happen, because the outpatient clinic simply can't organise appointments for inpatients. Rather than trying to work out a solution for me, the receptionist insisted that there were no doctors or nurses available today (yesterday) to talk to, and I would just have to ask for an ENT consult when we were on the ward next week. I have serious doubts now that we will in fact be able to get the grommets removed this trip.
I questioned the long wait for an appointment given that Eleanor's referral was urgent, only to be told that we were "quite lucky to get one at all". Lucky? One look at the pain my daughter has been in tells me she's far from lucky. Since when was luck a factor in obtaining health care? I insisted that someone who knew what was going on was to call me as soon as possible, because I was incredibly unhappy by that point.
The next person I spoke to was equally as unhelpful. All that she could add was that I would need to ask our plastic surgeon to request a consult with ENT, and then if, and only if, one was available, a registrar would come to the ward to see us. I questioned the lack of care that Eleanor has received from ENT. I had to demand someone come and see us on the ward after her grommets were inserted, and was told a number of times that it wasn't going to happen before someone finally appeared. There has been no follow up care, and when our GP requested a consult for a serious complication, it was ignored for almost two months. Funnily enough, all the woman on the phone could tell me was that if we were worried about any aspect of her care we should have our GP send a referral!
She also shared with me that the waiting list for appointments can be avoided, and suggested that had we taken her in to the emergency department in Hobart we would have been bumped to the top of the list. This to me reeks of favouring those who live in the south of the state; those of us living in the north of the state are being denied the care that is so important to keeping our children healthy, simply because of where we live. Hobart locals should not be getting prime positioning on waiting lists just because they are close by and can walk in to an emergency department with ease.
Our situation is far from rectified, and I will be calling a meeting next week with all of Eleanor's Hobart-based specialists to make sure that they know going forward what we expect from them. I am confident enough to do this, but I know that there are plenty of other families in the state who don't have this confidence, and who will accept this lack of medical care because they don't know what to do about it. These are the people I worry about.
I will be contacting members of parliament in the coming days to petition for a cleft coordinator, something that is available in many other states and organises all aspects of care for children like Eleanor who require care for a number of specialists but are situated outside of the area. I strongly believe that this service would greatly improve the level of care for children like Eleanor, and I'm sure you will agree when I compile the information.
We all know that the current health system in Tasmania is laughable. I think it's perhaps something that you don't really understand the consequences of until it is your family being put at risk. Something needs to change, and my family are hoping that the state liberals can bring some much needed relief.
Thank you,
Tracey Clark.
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