TOPIC:

Gee that's very disappointing to hear Bazza.....Considering shingles is a bread and butter diagnosis for any half decent experienced local GP, it's a shame your mum couldn't get an appointment to see her GP initially.  Sounds more like the ED doctors who saw your mum were hopeless rather then system mate. Goes to show, just because someone has a degree in Medicine, sadly doesn't mean they are competent at their job. Same in every profession....Lawyers, Police, Nurses, Dentists etc...always dodgy ones out there.

Sadly no matter how debilitating shingles may be, if your mum clinically looked well, had no abnormal vital signs e.g. pyrexia, she would of been a low priority triage unfortunately, despite her age. Thus the frustrating long wait to be seen. 

Out of interest, GP appointments over here in NZ are like hens teeth, usually pts waiting 1-2 weeks to get an appointment, is it the same in WA? The flow on effect sadly, is that people don't want to wait that long, thus present to ED with GP related issues.....thus causing long wait times and back log. But no excuses for misdiagnosis though, especially twice.....that's very disappointing to hear, simply not good enough.Hope your mum is on the road to recovery Bazza.
 

Senior Seagull wrote:

Mate shingles is no minor thing for the elderly my dear old mum had it quite badly and it was very debilitating and a major impact on her quality of life, hope your mum's on the improve now she has a diagnosis.

Thanks Mate - That's correct SS, its slowly getting better but no easy task,

Freezin wrote:

Gee that's very disappointing to hear Bazza.....Considering shingles is a bread and butter diagnosis for any half decent experienced local GP, it's a shame your mum couldn't get an appointment to see her GP initially.  Sounds more like the ED doctors who saw your mum were hopeless rather then system mate. Goes to show, just because someone has a degree in Medicine, sadly doesn't mean they are competent at their job. Same in every profession....Lawyers, Police, Nurses, Dentists etc...always dodgy ones out there.

Sadly no matter how debilitating shingles may be, if your mum clinically looked well, had no abnormal vital signs e.g. pyrexia, she would of been a low priority triage unfortunately, despite her age. Thus the frustrating long wait to be seen. 

Out of interest, GP appointments over here in NZ are like hens teeth, usually pts waiting 1-2 weeks to get an appointment, is it the same in WA? The flow on effect sadly, is that people don't want to wait that long, thus present to ED with GP related issues.....thus causing long wait times and back log. But no excuses for misdiagnosis though, especially twice.....that's very disappointing to hear, simply not good enough.Hope your mum is on the road to recovery Bazza.

 

I should of added she had also checked in with the GP early in the piece who, claimed it was an eye issue only, then it didnt improve so on a weekend it really flared up to a painful eye issue so went up to Charlies, who said it was a viral eye issue and said there was no medication available. It was already a massive rash with eye infection by this stage, finally after the second FSH visit a smarter ED Doc picked in 2 mins.

 

Perhaps as the symptoms progressed the diagnosis became more blatantly obvious...usually a rash develops a day or two after the initial burning pain.....interesting the GP concluded it was a viral eye infection initially.....would of thought considering your mum's age, shingles would of been one of the differential diagnosis the GP was considering.....and at least decided to initially treat with appropriate anti virals such as aciclovir....looks like your mum got hammered not once but thrice Bazza....don't blame you one iota for being pissed off mate.

Freezin, thanks, GP wait time is good, generally straight in on 24 - 48 hrs basis, but I'm certain people are presenting to Hospitals as bulk bill GPs are getting harder to find, and people don't want the gap in payment which is growing all the time.

What we really need is 7 Day a week bulk bill GP clinics at a few metro locations.

So can anyone shed some light on the NSW numbers and why we're still locked in. NSW which is being held up by McClown as how not to work with Covid currently has a total population of just over 8m and ours in WA is at around 2.8m or about 35% of theirs. They currently have approx 1m active cases. Of those 2700 are in hospital and 190 in ICU. If we extrapolate those numbers to WA, we would have roughly 945 in hospital and just 66 in ICU and that's if we opted NSW's let it rip strategy. I'm just so over this lunatic.

Bazza wrote:

Freezin wrote:

Gee that's very disappointing to hear Bazza.....Considering shingles is a bread and butter diagnosis for any half decent experienced local GP, it's a shame your mum couldn't get an appointment to see her GP initially.  Sounds more like the ED doctors who saw your mum were hopeless rather then system mate. Goes to show, just because someone has a degree in Medicine, sadly doesn't mean they are competent at their job. Same in every profession....Lawyers, Police, Nurses, Dentists etc...always dodgy ones out there.

Sadly no matter how debilitating shingles may be, if your mum clinically looked well, had no abnormal vital signs e.g. pyrexia, she would of been a low priority triage unfortunately, despite her age. Thus the frustrating long wait to be seen. 

Out of interest, GP appointments over here in NZ are like hens teeth, usually pts waiting 1-2 weeks to get an appointment, is it the same in WA? The flow on effect sadly, is that people don't want to wait that long, thus present to ED with GP related issues.....thus causing long wait times and back log. But no excuses for misdiagnosis though, especially twice.....that's very disappointing to hear, simply not good enough.Hope your mum is on the road to recovery Bazza.


 

I should of added she had also checked in with the GP early in the piece who, claimed it was an eye issue only, then it didnt improve so on a weekend it really flared up to a painful eye issue so went up to Charlies, who said it was a viral eye issue and said there was no medication available. It was already a massive rash with eye infection by this stage, finally after the second FSH visit a smarter ED Doc picked in 2 mins.


 

I’m off topic here, sorry people, but I couldn’t help responding to this one.  I had an ulcer on my eye from a scratch in 1988.  I had a week in hospital with treatment, then further treatment for another 2 months.  For 2-3 years it would break out occasionally and I had treatment that bowled it over in a week.  An ulcer in the eye is a herpes, or viral eye issue.  So 1988 they had a cure, but in 2022, your Mum couldn’t have been helped had she suffered this?  I won’t argue against her doctors, but gee…..

As many of you might have guessed I do vote labour but I tend to vote for my local person who think will do the best for my area, I do understand that it elects the person in West Perth or Canberra but that is our system as flawed as it is!

I have however reached a point in my support for the party (non financial except when in the CPSU until they told me cos I was a manager bye) where the federal arm is just pathetic and frankly as much as I think McGowan has done a great job in lots of stuff that he has reached a point of confusion.

The confusion is either his or the civil servants who are providing the advice or more than likely a combination of both!

We need clarity, open the state up, deal with the virus as it happens, understand that even the best (NSW) health care system will not cope, pay the police, teachers and more importantly Nurses and doctors more than what they deserve because these are the folk who will get us through the next 6 months.

I am ok and my family are ok as are lots of my friends (very few) and acquaintances but there are others for whatever real and invented reasons who are not. Make it difficult for those who choose to not vaccinate but for those who are protected to whatever degree the serums provide protection OPEN the place up!

Very well said Grump. I think you speak for a lot of people who supported McGowan in the beginning me included, but now have had enough of this fear campaign he insists on waging as he likes to see himself as some sort of white knight. Open the place up and let's get on with it as there's never going to be a perfect time.

Great to see the case numbers drop on the east coast.Well down on the numbers of two weeks ago .
However 92 people died from COVID-19 yesterday.30% where not vaccinated.The rest where aged between there 50"s to there 80"s.
Now we have a new varient of Omicron in AU.Spreading in Europe and called Omicron B2..Which spreads even faster than the original Omicron strain.