Bathurst Base Hospital

Great staff always friendly

Friendly staff but hopeless service. Was left to wait for hours in reception while my wife was admitted and placed on a drip. (They forgot to tell me). If I hadn't enquired as to what was happening I would be still there waiting in the cold reception area suffering from influenza.

I unfortunately had an experience similar to Caitlyn Nairne's. I will do everything in my power to go to another hospital if I decide to have another child. I was not shown many different things to care for my son and as a first time mother I had no clue how to do anything properly. I spent nearly my entire stay there in tears and upon my discharge day the nursing unit manager was informed of my treatment by an independent auditor and the manager apologised for my treatment and was shocked at her staff's lack of support and care for both myself and my son. My husband was also asked to leave the unit at one stage due to a nurse informing him that "being in the room with a breastfeeding mum is inappropriate" (our curtains were closed so this was impossible and he was there to help me with the things they didn't help me with)....though it was OK for other husbands to stare at me while breastfeeding in the nursery????
In short I was spoken down to, checks on my son were forgotten, meals were missed being served, my son was never bathed until we demanded it, there was no staff consistency, one nurse left after being charged with the supervision of my premature son when he was barely an hour old, no assistance provided to show me how to hold my son or change him with tubes everywhere, he was left with a blister from a nasal tube being left on the skin for too long, no privacy at any stage was granted to us (either in the nursery or shared room), visitors to the nursery weren't consistently told to wash their hands, there was no doctor consistency so I had to tell my details over and over again, I heard nurses talking about a lack of knowledge, training and skills with duties and medications and witnessed this, the follow up care was pathetic if not atrocious....so many more things I could write!
There is a very small handful of very helpful and beautifully supportive doctors and midwives, maybe they should be the standard not the other end of the spectrum.
Upon discussing my story with family I've found that I'm not the only one who's got a story like this to tell about this unit.

Went to Bathurst to attend the V8's and ended up spending the entire time in hospital. The care I received from everyone was fantastic. The nursing, domestic and medical staff were brilliant. Thank you for care and attention you were all absolutley fantastic.
Brian