“Patient and Family Experience Units” in NSW Government Hospitals

We’ve recently become aware of claims that the Royal North Shore government hospital has had a Patient and Family Experience unit, (previously named the “Patient Liaison Team,”) for 15 years, and further, that “All local health districts and specialty health networks in NSW provide a similar service to the Patient and Family Experience Unit at Royal North Shore Hospital. They have dedicated positions responsible to responding to patient, family and carers’ feedback.” – see the email from Natasha Maclaren-Jones, the Parliamentary Secretary for Health, dated 21 Jan. 2020, shown below.

We think this could be important information for those having anything to do with NSW government hospitals.

However, we very much suspect that these claims could be more nonsense from Ms Maclaren-Jones!

We’ll soon know, as this has just, on 25 Jan. 202o, been emailed to Graeme Loy, the CEO of the Westmead Government hospital.

Our readers and our own experiences in attempting to deal with the Westmead Government Hospital in the past would indicate that it’s extremely unlikely that this email will even be acknowledged, let alone responded to. We’ll let you know what actually happens.

A Tue. 28 Jan. 2020 update: To our great surprise, following on the email we sent to the Westmead Government Hospital on Sat. 25 Jan. 2020, shown above, we have just received this.

We say, “to our great surprise,” because we would have sent up to 20 emails to various doctors in the Westmead Government hospital and to Graeme Loy, it’s CEO, including lots of complaints, and not at any stage have we been made aware before of a Patient and Liaison Service. It will be so interesting to see how those who use it’s ordinary email address – WSLHD-PALS-Mail@health.nsw.gov.au – get on.

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Dr Kerrie Meades, Ophthalmologist – dealing with

One of our readers reports that ten years ago, in 2010, he was referred to Dr Meades for help with his developing double vision, and that his experiences with her and others in her rooms was so unsatisfactory that he made a formal complaint to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, and that when the Commission contacted Meades, she told them lie after lie after lie.

One of her many lies was that the reader had been “difficult to treat” because he had refused to have a cataract operation “as was clinically indicated,” and so she had concluded he was a hopeless case. Of course, the completely and utterly hopeless Commission fell for this “hook line and sinker,” (despite, amongst other things, the fact that we have never been able to find any claims that cataracts and double vision are connected in any way?) and the complaint was dismissed, and requests for the complaint to be reviewed have also been dismissed.

We make these allegations because our reader reports that he’s recently seen another Ophthalmologist who’s told him he still doesn’t need a cataract operation, more than ten years later!!!

It’s difficult not to start suspecting that Meades may have been making an industry out of carrying out cataract operations on unsuspecting patients when they didn’t need them ten years ago, and may still be doing it.

Attempts have been made to email Meades to get her side of the story, but she has blocked all emails both from our reader and us. And we will send a copy of this post to Sue Dawson, the Health Care Complaints Commissioner, and, of course, she won’t even acknowledge it – we’ve never been able to get any indication that Ms Dawson cares about things like this, or, in fact, anything. And we’ve never been able to get any indications from  Governments like the Berejiklian Government, that they care about things like this either.

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Being on Low Dose Naltrexone 1

As we’ve mentioned, one of our readers, a retired GP, says that, historically, there have been four really significant medical breakthroughs – Antibiotics, Antidepressants, Anti-inflammatories, and Immunization. And further, that to these four can now be added a fifth, which he says is as significant as any – Low Dose Naltrexone. And we’re getting the impression that Low Dose Naltrexone may be the most significant of them all!

It has been estimated that if everyone in Australia was on Low Dose Naltrexone, we’d need 20% less doctors – people would be consulting their doctors less often, they would be spending less time in hospital and so on and so on.

Is this an explanation as to why so few doctors seem to be getting into the business of advising on and perhaps prescribing it? why it’s so hard to find one who is? Whatever the explanation, to us, the extent to which so few doctors seem to be doing this is just remarkable.

There’s such a conflict of interest – so many vested interests, huge Pharmaceutical companies, and perhaps many doctors, interested in there being more sick people, not less.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. For instance are our politicians ever going to be doing anything about the fact that LDN perhaps could be saving taxpayers billions and billions of dollars? Or perhaps whether it’s more important to them to have the doctors onside?

But whatever happens, it’s got nothing to do with the fact that we the people, you and I, can be experiencing the benefits of being on LDN today, right now.

Comments and/or questions? Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.

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Another story of misdiagnoses 2

If you use this link you will be taken to an account put together with one of our readers of his experiences in dealing with the problem of red blotches on his penis – also quite extraordinary!

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Another story of misdiagnoses 1

If you use this link, you will be taken to an account put together with one of our readers of his experiences in dealing with the problem of wetness and itchiness around his anus – quite extraordinary!

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Reward systems

We, ourselves, live under what can be called “reward systems,” and all day every day, we deal with people and organisations that operate under them – some things that we and they do and say are rewarded more than others, making it more likely that we and they will do and say the things that get rewarded the most.

They are related to what one famous management writer describes as “The Greatest Management Principle in the World” – “THE THINGS THAT GET REWARDED GET DONE.”

An illustration of what we’re talking about is provided by the Andrew Brooks, Sydney Urologist, story.

As we’ve reported before, one of our readers reports that he was referred to Dr Brooks for help with what is called the “frequency problem” – he was having to get up 2 or 3 times a night to go to the toilet, which made it harder for him to get a good night’s sleep.

Dr Brooks’ diagnosis was that it was because his bladder, as he’d become older, had, for various reasons, become reduced in size so that it’s capacity was less than 200 mls, so that every time his bladder had 200 mls of urine in it it was full, and he had to get up and go to the toilet.

As our reader was to find out afterwards, the diagnoses provided by other Urologists, (which subsequently proved to be the right ones,) were completely different – that, as our reader had grown older, his bladder had become too weak to empty itself properly, so that after he’d been to the toilet it was still partly full, and so it was full sooner than it had been in the past.

Dr Brooks’ advice was that, if he carried out a TURP operation on him, his bladder would return to a more normal size comparatively quickly, and when our reader underwent the TURP it didn’t fix the frequency problem in any way!!! as Dr Brooks subsequently admitted in writing. And the advice of other Urologists would have been that very little could be done about a weak bladder at his age – something that is still so.

BUT! and this is the point – Dr Brooks got a fee of $3,200 for carrying out the TURP operation, whereas, if our reader had seen the other Urologists, the fees they would have got from him wouldn’t have been much, for providing the advice that nothing could be done. In other words, Dr Brooks got rewarded more for doing the wrong thing, than the two other Urologists did for doing the right thing!!!

(We could give many other examples of this sort of thing, and will try to do so in due course.)

Our reader reports that subsequently, when he made the comment to the GP that had referred him to Dr Brooks that, “I think he’s just wanting to build up a nest egg for his retirement,” the GP just laughed, saying, “I think Dr Brooks would have lots of nest eggs already!”

If, as we suspect, if Dr Brooks was/is filthy rich, and the other Urologists to whom we have referred were/are not nearly as well off, we’re sure it wouldn’t surprise anyone – and if this is how it is, it would be because of of the reward systems under which Sydney Urologists work.

More later.

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.

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Dr Andrew James Brooks – Sydney Urologist 7

An email just sent, (on 10 May, 2019,) to Dr Brooks.

We’re not expecting a response as we’ve sent him at least 20 other emails asking for “his side of the story” which haven’t even been acknowledged, let alone responded to – but we’ll let you know if he responds to this one!!!!

A 15 May, 2019 update: A few weeks ago we had a phone call from one of Dr Brooks’ henchmen saying that what we were putting up on our blogs and websites was starting to affect his practice and that we owed Dr Brooks an apology!!!!!?????. Our readers will guess how we responded – that we would be more than happy to put up on them his side of the story if he could send it to us. As we’ve said, we’ve sent him at least 20 emails inviting him to tell his side of the story, but he doesn’t even acknowledge them, let alone provide any responses. And the email shown above is yet another one, that 5 days later, he hasn’t acknowledged, let alone provided a response to.

Of course, even though our emails have been sent to two email addresses we have for him, and they haven’t come back, we realise that, if it ever became relevant, Dr Brooks would deny receiving them.

What we’ve learnt the hard way, and say now, is that if we send an email to any one, and it’s not even acknowledged within 14 days, even if we haven’t got one of those emails back saying that it can’t be delivered, that, if ever it becomes relevant, the addressee will ALWAYS deny that he or she got it.

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.

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Finding the best medical specialists to deal with

To find the best medical specialists to deal with, what we strongly recommend, (and do ourselves,) is that readers send an email to at least 20 of those who may be able to help them along these lines:-

And if they do this, we will be very surprised if they don’t feel it’s fairly easy to decide, from such replies as they get, which may be the best one or two specialists for them to at least have an initial face-to-face consultation with.

We strongly believe that if we had always been doing this ourselves over the last ten years it would have saved us from having three major operations that didn’t help in any way, and countless consultations with specialists that wasted our time and money.

To us, if a doctor, or someone on their behalf, provides a good response to such an email, it indicates:-

That they are into communication– many doctors aren’t into communication if you’re sitting right in front of them.

That they are likely to be prepared to put things in writing– which makes them ACCOUNTABLE for what they do and say. If a doctor is NOT prepared to put things in writing, it probably indicates that they themselves know that the advice they’re giving is not very good.

What we do and recommend is that after we’ve had a consultation with a doctor we write to them along these lines, (obviously if they have an ordinary email address, this makes it easy to do,) “In our consultation today, I understood you to say blah blah blah, blah blah. Have I got this right?”

If they’re not prepared to answer something like that, you’ve almost certainly wasted your time and money in seeing them.

Of course, the time consuming part in what we recommend, is putting together the email addresses that are needed to do it – we find that if these are readily available, it’s not hard to send out 40 emails in less than an hour.

To help with this problem we have started putting together the names of various medical specialists – we are up to 25 on our lists of Sydney Gastroenterologists, up to 37 on our list of Sydney Neurologists, and up to 40 on our list of Sydney Dermatologists, all with ordinary email addresses.

Email us on info@questionsmisc.info.

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South Derm – dealing with

We don’t think we’ve ever come across a worse website that this Dermatology practice’s website. We could just about write a book about all that’s wrong with it.

And it hasn’t even got a fax number, let alone an email form or an ordinary email address, to contact anyone about any of it’s problems! Come on guys, we’re in the 21st Century?

We’ve certainly given up any thoughts of trying to help ourselves, or anyone, deal with any of the ten practitioners they list.

(When you Google the name of one of them, Dr Geoff Wilksek, the results indicate that he’s an Ophthalmologist, not a Dermatologist at all!!! But we can’t find an entry for him on the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency’s website, which might resolve the matter one way or the other??? Perhaps he’s not registered to practice medicine at all??? Perhaps there’s no such person???)

In the words of Donald Duck, “Such dumbness might be catching.”

Help!

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.

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Dee Why Skin – dealing with

We’ve found that with most Sydney Dermatologists, their entry on the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency’s website shows something like this.

i.e. a “Fellowship of the Australasian college of Dermatologists” over and above the basic “Bachelor of Medicine / Bachelor of Surgery” qualification?

But this is not the case with any of the six doctors shown as practicing at Dee Why Skin.

Is this significant? Does it matter? We would love to know.

On 27 Apr. 2019, 8 days ago, this was sent in an email to the doctors there.

We would have thought that anyone considering consulting any of the doctors there was entitled to an answer to this question.

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.

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