Pain and aggravation at Mater Dei Hospital
On the evening of Sunday, June 8, our mother fell down and broke her wrist. We immediately took her directly to the emergency department of Mater Dei Hospital. We waited for four hours before anyone could even see to her injury while the staff on duty...
On the evening of Sunday, June 8, our mother fell down and broke her wrist. We immediately took her directly to the emergency department of Mater Dei Hospital.
We waited for four hours before anyone could even see to her injury while the staff on duty were extremely arrogant with us telling us that we were not the only patients who needed assistance. There were only two patients in the emergency room waiting for assistance including our mother!
Finally a nurse took some blood samples and sometime later a doctor saw to our mother's wrist. The bone was out of place so the doctor pulled it slightly back into place and put a temporary half cast plaster. He informed us that we needed to return to the hospital the following morning at 8 a.m. as an immediate operation needed to be performed because the wrist was badly fractured.
The next morning we went back to Mater Dei at 8 a.m. as requested and by 5 p.m. no one had seen to her apart from taking blood samples once again as the ones taken the day before had been lost. All this time our mother was in extreme pain. They took more blood samples and two hours later they were lost again - for the second time!
After eight hours of waiting on the second day, our 75-year-old mother was still in extreme pain. We were once again told to come the following day (the third day). When we asked what time she would be seen to the doctor on duty said that he could not guarantee that the operation would be done the following day and said it could take several days before she is seen to, depending on whether there was a slot to fit her into. This was on Monday, June 9.
On Tuesday, June 10, our mother could not bear the pain anymore and we did not want to risk waiting several days with no guarantee she would be seen to, so we decided to take her to St James Hospital in Sliema. She was operated on the following day by the same surgeon who was on duty at Mater Dei the previous day and this not only cost her three days of pain and aggravation but a hefty hospital bill of €3,800.
I sincerely hope nobody has to go through the pain and suffering our mother had to go through to have a broken arm seen to, and it is really a shame that we have a new hospital but a complete lack of customer care and efficiency.
Who is going to reimburse us for the expenses that should have been covered by the state of our so-called state-of-the-art hospital?