A Rutherglen man has criticised the lack of communication between surgical staff and patients after his operation didn’t proceed two days in a row while he waited at Albury hospital.
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Neil Hewitt, 53, said he had already waited about seven months for his haemorrhoid procedure, which was cancelled late on Monday afternoon and then again Tuesday morning.
But Mr Hewitt had been fasting in preparation since early Sunday morning and also taken the required treatments to clean out his system beforehand.
“The second one made me violently ill, like the worst case of gastro I’ve ever had, sweats and shakes and all sorts of things, so it was very, very unpleasant,” he said.
Mr Hewitt objected when Monday’s surgery didn’t go ahead and was assured he would be first on the surgical list the following day.
He was taken aback Tuesday morning to learn a different surgeon, unknown to him, would be performing the operation and so held up proceedings for “probably less than 10 minutes” while he phoned a family member to seek advice.
But after that he was kept waiting again until told about lunchtime the surgery wouldn’t go ahead that day.
Mr Hewitt understood emergency cases would take precedence but felt the whole situation could have been explained to him better.
“These people need to get their act together with communication,” he said.
“We’ve got lives and we’ve got commitments and things that we need to do as well, so we need to be informed instead of just sitting there all day.
“The nurses did the best they could, my biggest frustration was the way it was managed behind the scenes between doctors and management.”
An Albury Wodonga Health spokeswoman said the service did not discuss individual patients, but advised surgery was only postponed owing to emergency cases taking priority.
“Decisions are made by the surgeon, not by AWH, and are based on clinical priority,” she said.
Mr Hewitt, of Rutherglen Christmas Trees and Farm Stay, has rejected an alternative surgery date because of clashes with existing work and travel commitments.
“I’ll just manage how I’ve managed, I’ve got no short-term plans to have anything done,” he said.