WE ARE ‘grey nomads’ living on the road and visiting the Campaspe Shire to attend the 2019 National Rally and AGM of the Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia (CMCA) at the Elmore Field Day site.
It commenced on Sunday, October 20 and went for one week.
As you may imagine, living on the road and relying on ‘ad hoc’ medical services can be quite testing.
I had been suffering a health problem for some six weeks and when visiting a GP in Cobram, he virtually ordered me to head straight to hospital, either Shepparton or Echuca.
I chose Echuca for no other reason than we were heading this way.
What a great decision. I have to say that the last time I needed a hospital I was six years of age and had my tonsils out (now 67 years old).
I guess you read all the negative stuff about our medical system, you just get to believe it.
From entering ERH's emergency department on Wednesday afternoon, being admitted into hospital on Wednesday night, operated on Thursday and discharged Friday morning, the total experience has been quite overwhelming.
I hope I haven't gone too strong too early as I have an appointment with a surgeon to review the results but I'm very sure they will be positive due to the outstanding service I received.
ERH staff are a credit to the hospital and to themselves. They are very professional but still very personable. They are friendly but always in control.
Communications with myself as the patient and my wife as the support were the very best.
I was never in doubt as to what was happening and what was going to happen.
Quite obviously, there was sometimes a wait but never when I needed assistance. I do realise I was not the only patient in the hospital.
There is no way I can name all the staff I dealt with, it would be something like 30 different people and even that's a guess.
I just didn't get any different treatment from any one of them, it was quite amazing that staff of any organisation could hold such high standards over such an extended time under such pressure.
I don't do this sort of thing very often, but I feel so good about this experience and so good about myself as a result, it must assist the healing period.
The people of this Campaspe Shire and the whole region should be very pleased and appreciative of the resource that is the Echuca hospital.
We have visited Echuca several times, but this visit has been very special, although under circumstances I would prefer didn't happen, we will have long memories about our experience.
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