A former Labor politician has recounted a "nightmare" stay in Canberra Hospital, where he spent five days waiting for a procedure before discharging himself in frustration.
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John Hargreaves, a member of the ACT parliament for 14 years until his resignation in 2012, said he was sent by his doctor to the emergency room on Thursday, February 4, in severe pain and with a fever.
Arriving at 6pm, he had to wait 30 minutes to even see the triage nurse, and said he wondered as he waited why people who might need faster treatment could not be prioritised.
Once he reached the head of the queue, he was categorised as "urgent", but still had to wait an hour before he saw a doctor, in pain so severe he was eventually given intravenous morphine.
Tests revealed he had gallstones, so he was admitted and given antibiotics and prepared for an ECRP endoscopy procedure to remove a gallstone lodged in a duct. The procedure was scheduled for Monday, February 7, and in the meantime he was on a drip for the weekend with no food or drink.
Mr Hargreaves, who recounted his experience in a column on the blog Riotact, said Monday came and went with no information and no procedure. At 5pm someone arrived to discharge him, thinking the procedure had been done.
By Tuesday night, he had decided "enough is enough" and discharged himself, making an appointment to return for the procedure on Thursday.
Presenting at day surgery for the appointment at 10am, it was "noon or so" when he was finally taken from the waiting room and another half hour before he was taken to X-ray to join another queue, then another half hour before his procedure. After which he was finally sent home with his gallstone removed.
Mr Hargreaves said after a good night's sleep he was left wondering "did I just have a nightmare or was it real? The horror stories might just be right".
His days waiting in hospital sucked up resources and took a bed that could have been used for a sicker person, he said.
While the staff were "professional, empathetic, caring and dedicated ... it is the systems that they have to negotiate which seemed archaic. So much paper, so little information sharing, so little co-ordination, so little information to the patient along the way. Thank God I was not in a life-threatening situation".
Liberal leader Jeremy Hanson raised Mr Hargreaves' experience at Question Time on Tuesday, asking Health Minister Simon Corbell, "Why is it that after 15 years of ACT Labor even former ministers are raising such concerns about the ACT health system?"
Mr Corbell said he was disappointed by Mr Hargreaves' experience.
"I acknowledge Mr Hargreaves' concerns and I think they serve as at timely reminder that there remains work to be done to improve co-ordination of care in the acute care space," he said.
Before his parliamentary career, Mr Hargreaves worked at the hospital in rehabilitation and aged care and in finance. He also worked in community health through the 1980s.
He attributes the problems with lack of co-ordination to hierarchies and "turf wars" between specialists and between disciplines.