Good Hope Hospital

My 91 year old aunt who lives alone fell and broke her wrist last Tuesday morning. I phoned an ambulance at mid-day after I received this news. (She had fallen about an hour before and couldn’t get to the phone.) I cancelled the ambulance at around 8.45 pm after the ambulance still hadn’t arrived and my husband was able to get to us and take my aunt and myself to A&E. Many Ambulances there were unable to leave as they could not unload patients due to the amount of people waiting to be seen. I have no complaint with the treatment my aunt received and the staff were brilliant. But when she finally had her wrist plastered we were left in reception for just a follow up appointment, even though I had told them she lived on her own. It was still chaos in there and no one enquired if I was able to take care of her going forward. She certainly could not look after herself. I couldn’t even get a taxi as “no one available in the area” and my husband had to come back out to pick us up. After getting her home at 4.00 am in the morning I had no idea what I was going to do. I rang her GP surgery who were horrified she had not been assessed at the hospital and her GP arranged an emergency assessment which resulted in carer’s coming in 4 times a day (as apparently does not qualify for respite care) This is a great help, the downside being she is left alone overnight until a nurse arrives in the morning. This runs a high risk of her falling and causing further damage to herself. My aunt thought the ambulance wouldn’t come out to her because she was too old and I had to try and explain how busy they are but to someone in that much pain it sounds hollow. And to let her go home without her being assessed is shocking. She is unsteady on her feet, can’t dress herself now or make meals and needs help going to the bathroom and that would have been obvious by just looking at her. The system here has let her down and she, and people like her deserve better.

I have regular blood tests and phone calls from my cancer consultant. He is very good but I feel like it has lost the personal touch with all of my appointments being over the phone. They are just monitoring my condition for now though and I'm happy with the overall care I'm receiving.

My experience of Good Hope hospital was not good. I attended with my mom who was not well, we were in an assessment unit and a nurse asked my mom how old I was. She told them I was 15 and I corrected her straight away and explained that I was actually 16 and that my mum was not good at remembering our ages. The nurse was very rude and told me that I could not be there. I again explained and offered to show them my ID. They walked off abruptly. The nurse was then talking very loudly to other members of staff about me and our interaction. I found them really rude and unprofessional. We waited a long time to be seen in the department and overall it was not a nice experience for me or my mom.

I waited for 13 hours in A&E to see a doctor. They did a full MOT on me after I had a fall and hurt my hip. I was put in a bed. They did a blood test and the results showed that I have type 2 diabetes and my blood pressure was high. I was discharged at 1am in the morning and I had to get a taxi home in the end.

We visited good hope hospital with my husband, the staff were amazing. My husband lost consciousness Doctors, Nurses in A&E looked after my husband, such a wonderful team can't thank them enough.

They're alright in A&E. You don't have to wait too long, get seen pretty quickly, you get treated and get the help.

My wife has already had three different midwives during her pregnancy, which has caused disruption in her care. The latest midwife, attempted to reschedule an appointment only 30 minutes before the arranged time, saying she was at the hospital for her own reasons. My wife had already travelled to the clinic and decided to attend anyway. When she arrived, this midwife was in fact at work, which means she had misled us.

During that meeting the midwife appeared unhappy to see us and, importantly, she did not record the blood pressure reading or other clinical data in my wife’s maternity notes.

I find this behaviour highly unprofessional and unacceptable. We have lost confidence in this midwife and believe this is not the standard of care expected from NHS maternity services. We kindly ask for this to be investigated and for a different midwife to be assigned to my wife’s care.

They're a bit disorganised but okay. I was referred for blood tests and went and they hadn't sent the blood forms on, so they couldn't take my bloods that day and I was sent home. And there has been no follow up, was meant to go for a pre-op appointment and I've heard nothing. Tried calling them to no avail.

They saw mom about her hernia which took 3 years. Had an appointment 2 years ago about mom's ongoing knee issue and they did an x-ray and sent it back to the GP and said they weren't going to operate.

When I went to Good Hope, I had to explain my condition to random students and talk to them about a 20 year history.