Patients who attended Wollongong emergency department last year had more pain and less privacy than the previous year, with one in four saying they were not checked on by staff while waiting for treatment.
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More than a fifth of Wollongong patients surveyed got contradictory or not enough information while in hospital, while sixteen per cent said they felt threatened by other patients.
According to the results of the annual ED patient scorecard from the NSW Bureau of Health Information, Wollongong ranked "substantially lower" than others on two significant measures in 2022-23.
Wollongong patients were less likely to rate their care as very good compared to other hospitals across the state, the BHI report said, with the hospital ranked fifth worst on this measure.
Across the state, 60 per cent of patients rated their care as very good while less than half (49%) in Wollongong gave their care this rating.
Wollongong also rated worse than all but one other emergency department for the amount of information patients were given during their hospital stay, with a quarter of patients saying they were not given enough.
Across the state, 83 per cent of patients said they received the right amount of information, and the BHI said this meant Wollongong ranked "substantially lower" than all other hospitals except for Blacktown.
The Emergency Department Patient Survey also showed more than one in ten patients (11%) said the care they received in Wollongong ED "did not help them at all", while one in 20 had to return to the ED within two days.
One in five said staff did not do everything they could to help manage their pain while they were in the ED, and only 55 per cent of patients said they received documentation to give to their GP regarding their hospital stay.
Three out five patients were not given information about how long they would have to wait for medical treatment, and one in ten said they were not given enough privacy.
The hospital performed worse than the state on each of these measures, except for that relating to people who had to return to with ED within two days of treatment - a measure which Wollongong improved upon from the 2021-22 survey.
In more positive results, the majority of patients rated the ED professionals who treated them as very good (62%) or good (27%) and two thirds of patients said they would speak highly of their experience to family and friends.
Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District Executive Director of Clinical Operations Margaret Martin said the survey was a "snapshot" of 284 people who attended the ED during the year.
"During this period, almost 73,100 people attended the Wollongong Hospital ED," she said.
"This 12-month period saw the hospital experience sustained and significant demand, which impacted our capacity to admit new patients in a timely manner.
"We acknowledge this has affected the experience of people visiting our ED and thank the community for their understanding."
She also highlighted that 81 per cent of patients said they were always treated with respect and dignity, while 77 per cent said ED health professionals were kind and caring towards them.
"The District welcomes the opportunity to hear from patients and their families and carers about their experience while in our hospitals," she said.
Recent patients echoed same concerns as survey
Similar concerns to those raised in the survey have been echoed by patients more recently, with dozens of readers sharing their experiences after a Mercury report into ED conditions during a busy weekend late last month.
Then two women spoke out about the "scary" conditions they witnessed after watching their seriously ill husbands deteriorate in the waiting room.
A Horsley woman told of feeling "vulnerable and responsible" as she navigated the health system, struggling to get care for her husband who was told by their GP and paramedics that he may be fighting potentially deadly sepsis.
The woman says the couple faced a litany of barriers that slowed down their care, and that of other patients, despite "fabulous" medical staff making their best efforts.
The second woman told how her husband arrived at the ED in an ambulance on Sunday, but was then asked to give up his bed and instead receive treatment for kidney stones on chairs in the waiting room.
She said she was left with "zero faith in the medical system" and fearing a return to the region's largest hospital, which has faced among the worst cases of bed block in NSW in recent years.''
On social media, Kellie Stojcevski said she had been in hospital with "absolute pain both abdominal and severe back pain and had to wait in the waiting room for 24hrs".
"I had to chase them up for an sort of pain relief even Panadol, doubled up in pain I nearly discharged myself by midnight as I couldn't sit in that waiting room with my back condition," she said.
Likewise, Justine Youssef said she was "hunched over literally screaming in pain" when she was treated for chronic bowel issues.
"I begged for more pain meds... Sat there for hours unattended and not checked on at all apart from a student nurse who I begged for more pain meds, my body started to go into shock," she said,
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
