Royal North Shore Hospital - not that bad!

Well I hope you have all enjoyed your Summer break more than I have. I've had over a week suffering from food poisoning/gastro/something nasty since just after Christmas.

I wouldn't bother blogging about that (and I'll certainly keep the symptom descriptions and my friends jokes thereof offline...) but I feel compelled to report on my experience with the Royal North Shore emergency department.

For those outside New South Wales, the Royal North Shore vies for hospital most often in the news (in a negative way) with Campbeltown.

My experience was anything but negative. The triage nurse was polite (actually nice - not just for a triage nurse) and sent me right through after the requisite paperwork (which in hindsight probably means I looked like death).

The two doctors I saw were fine and gave me reasonable time, but the nurses (including one male nurse) were just fantastic. Gave me feedback on what they were doing etc. and were very good at checking in on me and having helpful suggestions when the oral liquid they tried to get me onto failed painfully. Oh, and being ready with the panadeine forte was nice ;)

To be fair the treatment mostly consisted of pumping saline into me (stat) along with some other stuff (mainly buscopan) and giving me pain relief if I threatened to cry, but for a 1am hospital visit I really couldn't have asked for better treatment.

It would have been much less bearable without Kath there—where would us tough men be without our ladies :)