"Excellent treatment, shoddy discharge"

My Mum attended DRI last week for a Gynae procedure, we were seen previously by the excellent Sister at the pre-op who explained everything to my 80 year old Mum in laymans terms.

Mum's op went well and she could not fault the care she received from all the staff, 2 days later she was discharged at 10.00 a.m. However when I went to collect her I was told that her meds were not ready and I would have to go back later that afternoon to collect them.

As Mum was not feeling well I did not query this at this point as she just wanted to get home.

When I went back to collect the meds the nurse was quite off hand with me and said they probably weren't ordered in time by the doctor but it wasn't anything to do with them as they weren't on shift when Mum left. Their attitude was very dismissive as though it was accepted that this was a regular occurrence.

My question is why were the meds not ready when they were standard medication that Mum was told at the pre op she would have to take for 5 days after op - it wasn't a surprise that she needed them or that she was being discharged on that day. In our case it was annoying as I had to leave Mum on her own whilst I drove back to town to collect them but what if I hadn't got a car or we lived miles out of town, not everyone is lucky enough to have a supportive family close at hand.

Just to finalise when I did get the injections home there was double the amount we required - what a waste of everyone's money.

Mum received exemplary care on G5 and in out patients and it was all delivered in a very professional but personalised way, sadly it was let down by the disorganised and don't care attitude on discharge - come on DRI get the last bit sorted.