To avoid the label of whinger I’m putting this post up as a cautionary tale for anyone who finds themselves in need of assistance at Wellington Hospital Emergency rooms.
Number One. Get a copy of any paperwork they generate when and if you ever enter ER.
My appointment to attend heart clinic was today, and the cardiologist started the conversation with, “so no worries then?” Now, this isn’t his fault. Once we unpacked the goings-on it turns out that ER isn’t sending any information from my file up to cardiology… so the cardiologist has nothing to go on.
Worse, the radiologists at Hutt Hospital aren’t sending stuff through to Wellington, so again, no information.
And my question is, WTF?
How the hell is a medical system supposed to work with no goddamn information transfer!? I have only one medical number, so why is my information not being sent to a centralised database for christssakes?
Gripe over.
My good fortune is to have an uncle who is a cardiologist in London. This means he was able to diagnose me by reading my blog, and insisted on an MRI and other tests. He’s familiar with a wider range of issues and recognised something that no-one here was able to pick up. He also insisted that no-one here owuld be able to pick up what he did…
Short story?
I regret that I live so close to this hospital. The cardiologist is a decent bloke, but needs decent info to do his job, which he just isn’t getting. And it’s goddamn annoying.
18 August, 2008 at 7:50 pm
You lucky bastard. CCH lost my medical file and had to start all over again.
18 August, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I have regular health monitoring with my GP, including annual health planning sessions with goals and everything. For two years running one of my goals was for my specialists to talk to each other and not require me to be the only liaison and courier.
After two years we gave it up as an impossible goal and instead I just have a plan for making sure everything gets to everyone. At the moment I’m well enough to do that. If I wasn’t it would be a huge problem; or at least a hugely aggravating one full of repeated tests and scans and circular referrals.
18 August, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Hi Che,
I loved your comment about only one number.
Last time I heard the NZHIS had about 50Million people in their ‘unique’ number database.
So no, you probably have about 8 or more.
But seriously, get well!
Andrew.
18 August, 2008 at 10:46 pm
bloody hell that sounds terrible.
honestly it makes me feel glad dad has had medical insurance that covers his visits to his heart specialist.
but it shouldn’t have to be like this for anyone
19 August, 2008 at 8:50 am
yup. i’m starting to think that maybe an idea i heard about might not be such a bad idea.
give everyone there own medical records in entirety. they can carry them on a limited-access USB stick, which *they’re* responsible for (losing it is obviously an issue, but most people wouldn’t. it could also be backed-up somewhere).
so, wander into the gp? hand them the USB and all the data is right there.
19 August, 2008 at 9:02 am
As an ex health professional the only way I could get varying specialists to confer was get them in the same room – nearly impossible but the “group conference” approach really worked. And yes many people have several numbers.
I worked with patient held notes too and very very few people lost them. The problem was when someone turned up at hospital or another health team with their personal notes the Doctors started their own hospital notes and didn’t enter anything in the patient held notes.
19 August, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Don’t even get me started. I had some CT scans done overseas which I took to specialist #2 who in conjunction with specialist #3 was going to fix my chest wall problem. After specialist #3 quit I was then referred on to specialist #4 by. The specialist #2 sent over all my previous x-rays etc but somewhere along the way lost my CT scans which would be quite useful for specialist #4 as he’s metal bars through my chest and would quite like to avoid hitting the heart or the lungs in the process.
20 August, 2008 at 8:59 am
yup. i’m thinking this might make something of a nice minor issue for the forthcoming election.
better send out some emails.
22 August, 2008 at 10:11 am
Well CCDHBs communications within and between specialists, including your GP specialist, are woeful.
The good news is they have finally accepted, not without some telling, they are woeful and have even formed a committee to address such ‘interface issues’.
This is a Good Thing. This is a Good Thing. I tell myself this because I am on the commiittee and I really really need to feel it will make a difference.
I had better stop now, there are just so many gripes waiting to be told…
13 February, 2011 at 6:03 pm
[...] >Spurred on by Che’s ongoing medical dramas I am going to whine about my [...]