Patient Compliment - 'I am so grateful I had you on my team'

SCGH's Intensive Care Unit East (formerly General High Dependency Unit) recently received this heartfelt feedback from a busy Mum who has returned home to her family and is feeling strong once again.

"Hello everyone in the HDU at Charles Gairdner,

I have recently returned home after a week long stay with you after emergency surgery to put stents in my neck. I probably wasn’t articulate enough at that time to tell you wholeheartedly just how much your care, skill and genuine kindness meant at such a challenging time. So I wanted to take a moment now that I am (thankfully) home to tell you how important each of you are and how much what you do matters - really matters.

This time in my life has been scary and shocking to say the absolute least. One day I was fit and healthy, a busy mum running around - the next I was having bedside consultations with neurologists telling me how lucky I was I had listened to relatively mild symptoms. I arrived to you weak and in shock. What was probably an ordinary workday for you, was for me (and no doubt every patient in your care) one of the hardest and scariest challenges I have ever faced. I felt terrified, vulnerable and very alone. And there you all were, picking me up and holding me until I felt strong enough to stand again.

It wasn’t just the sum of the tasks you completed for me, it was the genuine care, the kindness you showed, the time you took with me, the easy jokes, the chats, the hot chocolate run, the questions answered, brushing my teeth and washing my face with such compassion, checking on me, asking about my daughter, making sure I had water and doing observations so gently sometimes I barely woke. It was overhearing snatches of the shift swap-over and amidst the details of blood pressure and medications, hearing you mention that I had left my two year old for the first time ever. It was - and I appreciate this may sound strange in these circumstances - feeling welcome in your busy, demanding workplace as I took the time I needed to heal and feel strong enough to walk through the doors again. It is not an overstatement to say you are angels on earth - and I am so grateful I had you on my team for a brief while.

I am now firmly in the healing arms of my family. The work you do is obviously critical, but the warmth with which you do it is equally important. It allowed me to return home and be a (slightly less!) busy Mum and feel strong being in my own life again. On behalf of the three of us, I thank you from the bottom of our hearts. I will always look back on this terrifying time with a little sadness but a big dose of affection for my team of angels who nursed me back to health and strength with such kindness.

Thank you"

*Photo does not depict patient.