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View Full Version : Paedriatic care..or rather lack off!



Dadie
08-Dec-13, 00:48
Why do we have to suffer a 2and a half hour drive any time the kids are not well enough they have to be hospitalised!
There is adequate phone/video links to raigmore for kids with high temps .
I know is a better be safe than sorry thing..but you have to go down under your own transport......what if the child takes a turn for the worse on a bus or for heavens sake the train surly thats more of a risk!

rich62_uk
08-Dec-13, 01:19
The way I see it is we choose to live here. I would rather be safe than sorry and if a child is takes a turn for the worse on the journey you can always call an ambulance.

Living here is a bit like living on an island and can work out hard in some areas however, it also means that time in a way is a little forgotten here and much safer and nicer for our children in general.

The good with the bad !

I prefer/love it here to anywhere else so stay.

Spongeboab
08-Dec-13, 01:30
totally agree, staff up here don't mess about, if your child is really ill, they won't leave you to get on a bus to inverness

Kenn
08-Dec-13, 01:39
I would prefer to see the £3,000,000 spent by NHS Highland annually used to provide more care at Caithness General rather than being used to reimburse folk going down to Raigmore .
As Dadie pointed out there are many technologies available but they seem not to be used.
Any one sick does not want to face a journey of 2/3hours on a good day and 5 hrs on a bad one being sent down the road.

DMFB
08-Dec-13, 01:56
I would happily travel two and a half hours with my grandchildren to ensure they get the treatment they need.Im sure that this will only be allowed if they are not serious otherwise Im sure an ambulance or helicopter would be called apon,it was an ambulance last time my grandaughter was ill.

orkneycadian
08-Dec-13, 11:38
Over this side of the burn, there are plenty folk who would be delighted to be within a 2.5 hour drive of a significant hospital, with bus and train options as well as car! At times here, as well as depending on the ferries just to get to the hospital in Kirkwall, we have to depend on things right down to the lifeboat. Just last week, someone had to get a lifeboat transfer to Kirkwall as the ferries weren't running due to the weather. I guess it would have been a fairly "interesting" run in, given the high wind and sea states.

Even then, you might only be as far as Kirkwall - Seasick as a dog, on top of whatever was wrong with you in the first place. Then you might still have to get to Aberdeen.

Big Gaz
08-Dec-13, 14:21
Paediatrics aside, i recently had to have an emergency operation. On the Monday I was admitted to Wick then transferred to Raigmore that night. On the Wednesday evening i was flown to Aberdeen by air ambulance where i had the op and then the following Monday given a ticket to fly home to Wick.
On the Monday, after speaking to the lady that sorted out my travel home, i mentioned the cost for the logistics of transporting me all over the place and this on top of the operation and hospital costs for the 7 days. I said it's a pity they couldn't have done the op in Wick as we have a nice new underused hospital and the reply was "co-location of services" but that my treatment was all within the NHS Highland budget allocation. I looked up this co-location and this is what i found on NHS Scotland. It's an old document (2007)
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/03/28113358/5

poppett
08-Dec-13, 16:54
I have met two different sets of parents at Raigmore who had taken their child to Caithness General and they were transported to Inverness by ambulance. On arrival the child had spiked their fever and were on the mend so Raigmore discharged them. In one cast the mother was in her onesie, no money, no clothes and unable to claim travel expenses until she got home because she didn`t have the letter she needed regarding her benefits.

I have a friend waiting to go to Aberdeen for a heart operation and she has to find her own way there and back then claim refund as no patient transport is available. She can not go from her kitchen to her dustbin without chest pain, how in the name of heavens is she supposed to get to Aberdeen on buses and trains without somebody with her, then they have to stay down at their own expense.

starfish
08-Dec-13, 17:23
if a person needs a escort they can claim up to £35 per night and as for travelling this is copied off the back of a expense form (Only necesary expenses in excess for each return journey to hospital will be reimbursed to the patient who fulfill the following condition . The distance travelled from hiome or place of residence to the hospital must be over 30 miles or more or must have involved a journey by sea of 5 miles or more )so that any one if working if you are on certain benifits you get it allback any one traveling to a hospital other than wick should alway ask for a expense form they do not tell you about them as per usual

pat
08-Dec-13, 17:43
Live on western isles, find it strange that travelling within islands mileage allowance was I think 60p a mile but if you had to go to Inverness etc it somehow dropped to 10p a mile once you crossed the Minch!
Escorts were decided on a whim, no medical evidence just if your face fitted, things have changed slightly but still no hard and fast rules.
First flight out of Stornoway on no day morning to Inverness is known as the Raigmore express.

rich62_uk
08-Dec-13, 17:57
Even with travelling 2 1/2 hours to Inverness you will still be seen quicker than if you lived down south. A an E in London is appalling even the childrens part.

One of my children had a nasty bump on the head, we went to Dunbar where they put us on a link with a hospital further down south in Scotland, cant mind which one it was. They examined it via the link up and were not happy so we went off to Wick general. Was seen almost immediately and was given the all clear, we were back home within 1 and 1/2 hours, far quicker than any hospital I have ever used.

Fantastic service.

gerry4
08-Dec-13, 21:45
when I lived in milton keynes, I went to A & E on a sunday as I thought I had a broken thumb. Was told to come back in 5 hours & I would be seen. Caithness you are seen very quickly. I know which I prefer.

Also was in patient at Raigmore last week. Was due to be discharged on Thursday but due to the weather they were very happy to let me stay another night.

little red one
08-Dec-13, 23:22
Even with travelling 2 1/2 hours to Inverness you will still be seen quicker than if you lived down south. A an E in London is appalling even the childrens part.

One of my children had a nasty bump on the head, we went to Dunbar where they put us on a link with a hospital further down south in Scotland, cant mind which one it was. They examined it via the link up and were not happy so we went off to Wick general. Was seen almost immediately and was given the all clear, we were back home within 1 and 1/2 hours, far quicker than any hospital I have ever used.

Fantastic service.

Totally agree, Wick were great with my wife and minimal waiting times. I went to Dunbar with a load of grit in my eye and was seen within 15 mins! The nurse even apologised for making me wait. Waiting times for Southend or Basildon were 3hrs min if you were lucky what with constant emergencies coming in but kids always got put to the top of the list..

My wife got called down to Inverness for a check up and was asked how she was... thats it! From parking the car to leaving not even 20 mins but at least we didn' t have to pay for the parking :roll:

Fran
09-Dec-13, 01:03
Why do we have to suffer a 2and a half hour drive any time the kids are not well enough they have to be hospitalised!
There is adequate phone/video links to raigmore for kids with high temps .
I know is a better be safe than sorry thing..but you have to go down under your own transport......what if the child takes a turn for the worse on a bus or for youheavens sake the train surly thats more of a risk!


You do NOT have to go in your own transport. There is an ambulance car service if the ambulance or patients transport vehicle are unavailable at the time.

Fran
09-Dec-13, 01:05
There is also a video link for doctors in hospital at wick to hospitals in Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh etc.

Kenn
09-Dec-13, 01:31
I think that was what Dadie was referring to Fran and she was querying as to why it is not used.
I am led to understand that there are full Xray facilities at Dunbar but no radiologist, seems a shameful waste of equipment.
I have never managed to establish just how much money is spent transferring patients as despite various requests even under The Freedom of Information Act, the figures are not available, I got the £3 million from NHS Highland as that is what they had had to pay out in travel reimbursement to patients attending Raigmore from Caithness. I would think that the true figure, if flights, ambulance costs are added to the equation would be more than double that amount.
When there is a modern hospital in Wick with a cottage hospital in Thurso, my thought is that there could be a lot better provision of services locally but it seem that since Caithness became part of The Highland Council and NHS Highland things have gone onto a very slippery slope.
We are told that the population is increasing, that more people are needed in north, one way to get them here is to offer excellent services not to continue with the current centralisation.

cptdodger
09-Dec-13, 01:36
To be honest, at this point I would not care how long I had to wait, as long as I could see the right person. The waiting times at Ninewells (Dundee) were not brilliant, (apart from the time I went there with chest pains, and they could not see me quick enough,) but at least you were directed to the right doctor/ Consultant. I have just moved recently and as a result had to move doctors surgeries. Three months on the new doctors have only received what seems to be half my notes, bless them as hard as they are trying they have never treated anybody with what is actually wrong with me, as a result, they do'nt know how the medication my Consultant (Raigmore) put me on is supposed to work in regards to my illness. To compound things, my consultant is off ill, the other consultant my GP contacted, regarding my medication, is now also off sick, which leaves one Consultant coping with whatever area Raigmore has to cover. Do'nt get me wrong, I cannot blame people for being off ill, but it certainly does not help my predicament at this moment in time. So, yes I could go to Caithness General and be seen in 10 minutes or so, but it would not be the right person I was seeing.

cptdodger
09-Dec-13, 01:44
The way I see it is we choose to live here.

Just to quantify I moved here because of my partner's job. But before I made the decision to move here I made sure there was a consultant at Caithness General that knew enough about my illness, so that if I required treatment it would be available. Unfortunately he has now left and has not and will not be replaced. There are of course Consultants there, but the way they were described to me is they are general consultants and do not specialise in any particular field of medicine.

Kenn
09-Dec-13, 01:48
There are facilities at Caithness General to link with a other hospitals and various consultants, which is in question posed by the starter of this thread as to why they are not used?
My notes have not caught up to my current GP practice either, fortunately unlike yourself cptdodger I have only needed to consult a doctor once in the last four years.

cptdodger
09-Dec-13, 02:02
There are facilities at Caithness General to link with a other hospitals and various consultants, which is in question posed by the starter of this thread as to why they are not used?
My notes have not caught up to my current GP practice either, fortunately unlike yourself cptdodger I have only needed to consult a doctor once in the last four years.

I have never been offered a video link to anybody. I am so pleased you have not had to see a doctor for that amount of time Lizz, it was just a case of bad timing for me, the consultant as I said, put me on two lots of medication, one to get me off the other one, and it's the one I am left with that's causing the problems, I have to have blood taken every two weeks as the medication can damage (I think it's my) white blood cells, but the GP's will not take me off it until they get the okay from the consultant !