IDIOT OF THE WEEK NSW hospital sends hospital experience survey to dead patient
BY: Kartya Vucetic
It’s been a while since we’ve brought back our ‘Idiot Of The Week’ award category, and if there was ever a day to do it, it’s today. Because NSW Health have just been caught red-handed in a rather outrageous, and rather stupid, fuck up.
Speaking to Ben Fordham this morning on 2GB radio, it was revealed that Wyong Hospital recently sent a hospital experience review survey to a patient. And while this might be a rather standard procedure to bolster our already under-resourced healthcare system, there was one oversight that had been missed.
The patient had already died thirteen days ago.
Colin, the son of the recently deceased, called Fordham to express his dissatisfaction at the situation. On May 16, his grieving mother received the letter addressed to her husband, asking to comment on what they could have done better at. Safe to say it kind of made matters worse. Because after spending six weeks at Wyong Hospital for treatment for pancreatic cancer, the unnamed patient sadly passed during his admission.
Ladies and gentlemen, Wyong Hospital | Image: Health Infrastructure – NSW Government
“It concerns me, this is not something that really should have happened,” NSW Health Minister Ryan Park insightfully stated in a pretty fucking awkward exchange between the two, all live on-air.
It was at this point that Fordham revealed that he had already received multiple messages and call-ins from other people in NSW who had received the same distressing letter in the past from different hospitals.
“We’re trying to get to the bottom of exactly how it happened”, Park assured.
Now look, we can’t be too harsh on the NSW health care system in the same way that we might be on other industry professionals. After all, significant under-resourcing and understaffing does mean that things slip through the cracks. But nevertheless, whoever sent that letter hands down wins the award for ‘Idiot Of The Week’.
