Fremantle Hospital

I can only review the Emergency Department as I have very limited experience with this hospital otherwise. During the week, there is a constant stream of busy people running through the joint. The triage staff are all very pleasant, well trained and helpful but unless you are bleeding like you are in a B-​Grade horror movie, make sure you bring a magazine/​iPod/​book/​gameboy to keep yourself amused. Still, the staff always do their best here, even at busy times. They’ve patched me up a number of times and I’m still alive, so they must be doing something right.

I arrived at the emergency department somewhat sheepishly.. . not really suffering from any ailment that required urgent attention, just trying my luck on a sunday when other medical practitioners were kicking back. Well– Freo has quite the red chair green chair operation going on. Red chairs are for people waiting to visit patients and the green chairs are for aspiring patients. (I say aspiring as not all of us got through.) It’s very much a needs based assessment of the clientele coming in, so in my hour and a half of observing this is what I noticed– eye injuries or obvious external bleeding scores highly on the priority list, as does breathing issues, heart pains and babies. This is closely followed by swollen or punctured body parts and evident signs of distress. Considering it was a fairly tame waiting area (no more than 7 people waiting at a time) I figured I would let everyone who was in obvious need (or suspected obvious need) of medical assistance in first and then see if anyone was free to see me. When it was my «turn» I explained that I wanted to have a check up before i leave the country in 2 weeks and the nurse was significantly calmer and more sympathetic than she could have been. She smiled politely and explained that unfortunately as it was the emergency department they really do need to keep the doctors on call for emergencies and if I could wait for a day until standard GPs were available, that would be the best option.
Gosh did I feel like a dork. I was tempted to fein heart pains or a failing kidney to redeem myself but concluded that I would probably embarrass myself further. The nurses here have a great bed side manner with everyone they deal with and I have nothing but respect and admiration for what they do.

Fremantle Hospital is a small 24-​hour acute-​care facility with 450 beds, active education and research programs, an affiliation with UWA and clinical placements for student doctors. It’s slightly difficult to review a hospital and claim that individual experiences are standard, but on the occasion I visited the ED I was sorely disappointed. I visited this hospital some months ago and have to say my experience was very poor. I went to the emergency ward after fainting at work (which was out of m GP’s business hours), and was taken to a bed after time with the triage nurse. Staff lacked empathy, and didn’t seem to operate as a team. I felt like I recounted my symptoms 10 times over to multiple people, and my father wasn’t fetched from the waiting room until I asked for him 3 times. It was only after my father entered the ED that the staff began to treat me. The place just seemed highly unorganised.