NOEL Pound has been fighting for change since the “disappointing treatment” his late wife, Cheryl, received at Mildura Base Hospital five years ago.
Mrs Pound’s death was the catalyst for Mr Pound and his son Michael establishing the Mildura Hospital Conversation Group to lobby for the hospital’s return to public management.
Mr Pound said he was “a bit dumbfounded” when he was informed his group’s campaign was finally coming to fruition on Thursday afternoon.
“(Conversation group secretary) Jo Rodda rang me first to tell me that she had heard that it was going back and she said she couldn’t stop crying,” he said.
“I thought what?
“I was delighted, but it took a while to sink in.
“Everyone in Sunraysia has been working on it for so long and the expectations haven’t always been high.
“After all that time you begin to feel a little bit emotional even.”
Mrs Pound died in August 2014 after a battle with secondary breast cancer.
Mr Pound, a former registered nurse at the hospital, sent an official letter of complaint to management four months later.
“When my wife was admitted here it was just one disaster after another,” he said.
“Her cancer markers were improving, so one of the hospital doctors — who was obviously under the pump — came along, looked at her drainage bag urinary and said, ‘How long has that been there?’
“(Staff) told him and he said, ‘Oh well she obviously has kidney failure’, pulled out the intravenous antibiotics and fluids and sent her off to ward four.
“She got to ward four and she was sitting in a bed full of urine because the catheter had malfunctioned, so we said, ‘Put all the treatments back please’.
“(The doctor) said no.
“I sent a text back to the oncologist and he sent a text back saying please reinstate all treatments and the hospital doctor said, ‘I’m in charge here’.”
Michael Pound described the experience as “weird”.
“They hadn’t actually tested her kidneys, they said, ‘Oh yeah, she’s got kidney failure. I’m a kidney doctor’,” he said.
“We said, ‘Oh, have you tested it?’ and they said, ‘Oh no, we haven’t done the test’.
“It was just weird.
“He was under the pump too because the interns were changing over, so he was orienting all the interns while he was running a ward.
“He was just in a hurry.”
Mr Pound, who was using social media and the conversation group as a platform for other patients to share their stories, said there were too many avoidable situations to name.
Among those was that of a 90-year-old woman who Mr Pound’s group was later told didn’t receive pain relief from hospital staff, despite continued requests from family members.
Mr Pound claimed the woman was “wetting her bed and screaming for three hours” until she was prescribed medication.
“It’s endless and (there are) serious stories every week,” Mr Pound said.
“It’s sort of money first and patient care second.
“That’s the reality of it.”
For Mr Pound, the biggest issue at the hospital has been the absence of experienced staff.
However, he is hopeful that community input and contribution would return with the change to public management.
“It’s good news, it couldn’t be better,” he said.
“The task now will be to keep pressing on to contribute to the hospital.
“It has to get back to people loving to be there — you don’t become a nurse or a doctor because you want to make money.
“I believe it can be brought back to that, if they can get some sort of enticement for senior staff to roll up, doctors and nurses and everyone else.
“That’s going to be the goal.”
