The 23-year-old business analyst said her recent experience with the system after she suffered a surfing injury was less than satisfactory.

She says she attended Wollongong Hospital's emergency department on a number of occasions for treatment for a dislocated thumb on Saturday, March 28.

She first attended the ED on the Sunday night, but left after she was told a specialist would not be available to talk through her X-ray results for at least six hours.

She said she went to a GP on the Monday morning, and was told the hospital should have called her back in as she required emergency surgery due to the extreme degree of angulation of her thumb.

Back to the ED she went, only to be told she would need to get back in the queue.

That day she would spend a total of 10 hours in the ED, undergo a number of X-rays and consultations, only to leave with no discharge papers, no referral and no medical certificate.

On Tuesday she returned to the ED and waited for a further couple of hours for that referral to a private surgeon, whom she consulted later that day. However due to financial considerations she decided to go public, and returned to the ED to be placed on the surgical list.

"I was told I would receive a call the night before surgery so I could fast, but didn't get one. Then I received a call on Thursday to ask where I was," she said.

"Because I had not fasted the operation could not go ahead. I was then told a hand surgeon would not be available until the following Tuesday so agreed to wait till then.

"However, when I arrived at the day surgery on Tuesday morning, I was told my surgery was not scheduled."

Ms Saddi said the staff ended up slotting her in, but when she woke up she discovered that the specialist who had done the surgery was not a hand surgeon.

"[The doctor] was an orthopaedic surgeon who was a hip and knee specialist but not a hand specialist," she said.

"I was not happy with this as I was told I was waiting for a hand surgeon.

"It's my right hand - I needed the best outcome I could get."

Ms Saddi said she returned for a follow-up consultation this week only to find that there was still 10 degrees angulation in her thumb.

"When I asked why they couldn't fix it up perfectly, the doctor told me that he wasn't a plastic surgeon and didn't aim for perfection, just functionality," she said.

"I still have no feeling at the base of my thumb and don't know whether that will return, or how functional it will be.

"I just felt like I went through this massive ordeal, where I was hitting a brick wall every step of the way, only to be seen by a doctor who wasn't a hand specialist and have a less than perfect result."

Northern Illawarra Hospital Group general manager Nicole Sheppard said the case was under investigation.

However, on review of the clinical notes, she said, Ms Saddi had been seen "well within appropriate time frames" and "appropriately referred for specialist treatment".

"Wollongong Hospital takes very seriously any patient or family concern and it's unfortunate to hear that a patient had an experience that did not meet their expectations," Ms Sheppard said.

"Our director of clinical services has made contact with the patient to directly discuss her concerns."