After a strange infectious illness epidemic and a succession of horrific calamities, a brand new $50 million hospital is in shambles.
Nepean Hospital, near Penrith, has just been open for a few weeks and already has a number of issues, including a broken elevator.
The hospital is in such a bad state that it has banned any visitors, which is causing patients and their families a lot of anguish.
To make things worse, the public elevators to floor seven do not work. Visitors have to wait for nurses to take them back down in the secure staff elevators, which are only half-working.
A contractor said that the public elevators would not be turned on until NSW Health pays the bill.
A listener named Peter wrote to 2GB radio explaining the problems he and other families of patients have had with the new facility.
He called then through to the radio station on Wednesday morning and explained to Ben Fordham that his wife Donna was in a room by herself for a week unable to see her family.
He said ’emotionally and mentally she is struggling’ and families have not been told whether the infectious disease is Covid.
Peter said the nurses couldn’t understand why and were so upset they had to take people down in a secure elevator because the other elevator was not working.
‘It’s taking them away from their patients and sometimes you have to wait 20 to 30 minutes for a nurse to be available to take you down,’ he said.
‘If there was an emergency there is no way you can get out, there is no fire stairs on that side of the building that I know of cause I looked to see if I could get out another way.’
He was able to arrange a one-off visit to see his wife Donna on Tuesday, but said he had to apply every day and beg to get in there.
Peter expressed his concern for his wife, the other people and their families.
Shadow Health Minister Ryan Park said the situation was ‘an absolute joke and it’s a disgrace’.
‘These are very, very sick people… we need to show a bit of commonsense and a bit of compassion,’ he said.
‘it is simply appalling that we’ve got a hospital like this already with problems through the basics for people to move in and around the hospital.’