Share review of Princess Alexandra Hospital

Princess Alexandra Hospital 2021-07-09 Person 5 5 0

Operation date Saturday 26th July 2021 Luke is autistic with communication differences & has Epilepsy. We as his parents have to communicate for him at times. He had to have both of his toenails removed due to ongoing infections under general anesthetic. This was a huge endeavor for him as he didn’t have full understanding of what was going to happen. We prepared him in the way that works well for him. We would like to thank all of the staff who cared for Luke, some names we remember some we didn’t get. Mr Kar Teoh and his registrar for doing the operation & Karen Thomson Learning Disability nurse for helping us in the first instance on our appointment with Mr Kar Teoh. The nurse who did his MRSA swabs and covid testing was calm and gave him time to be able to have the test done the nurse who took his blood for pre assessment. Eleanor Marriott the surgical bookings secretary who kept me informed the whole time and helped to put in place with Mr Teoh reasonable adjustments to the day so that Luke didn’t have to wait, and wait he didn’t, we arrived in the afternoon to the Netteswell Admissions unit and went straight in to see a lovely nurse called Abigail who had a lot of autism knowledge and adjusted to Luke’s communication needs. Chelsea the nurse who took as through to the theater and cared for him after who kept everything quiet. The anesthetist & his assistant who made adjustments to enable Steve and I to support Luke while having the cannula put in who allowed him his headphones and Luke went off to sleep calmly. Mr Teoh came straight out to tell us the operation went well, and we were allowed to be in recovery for when Luke woke up. Elizabeth the recovery nurse was gentle and let us know what was going on and what the machines did. Then to the Alexander Day unit where the nurse in charge (We didn’t get her name) was lovely. You may be thinking, why I am sending such a detailed list of the day’s events. The reason is it is such a difficult experience for an autistic individual to go through and could have ended up being a traumatic memory for him which would have resulted in us not being able to get him into a hospital ever again. Luke’s operation went really well because all the staff in the lead up & the day made it such a positive experience for him and us. They listened and made appropriate reasonable adjustments which made a huge difference to the whole day. Not all autistic individuals are the same everyone is different and will experience situations differently but with the right support and understanding of autism everything is possible. Reasonable adjustments are just that. Thank you for being open to our suggestions and listening.