Patient’s Praise

A Colac Area Health patient says the hospital is a credit to the public health system and the community is fortunate to have a quality service.

Tanybryn’s Leigh Forster has lived in the Otways for 12 years and continued to travel to a private Melbourne hospital for treatment.

But after deciding to choose Colac’s hospital for day surgery, she was amazed at the level of care at the public country health service.

“I spent two days in the Colac Hospital and what a wonderful experience it was,” Mrs Forster said.

“I’m a city girl and would normally go to a private Melbourne hospital but I thought why not go to Colac?

“I’d never been there before and I do have a propensity for getting infections and any procedure can make you nervous,” she said.

“But the staff were wonderful, from the anaesthetist to the surgeon to the nurses; they went beyond the call of duty and I felt they were more than competent.”

Mrs Forster said she was in a “reasonable position to assess” the procedures and service after spending time in private city hospitals.

“I’ve had breast cancer and numerous operations in Melbourne and I could have gone to Melbourne believing the service would be superior,” she said.

But Mrs Forster said a presumption that a country hospital could not offer quality care would have been “wrong”.

“The level of professionalism and efficiency was second-to-none and the staff were everything you would expect from a well-run service industry,” she said.

Mrs Forster said she contacted the Colac Herald to praise the hospital after “so much criticism of public hospitals” and she wanted to reassure district people they had access to excellent health care in Colac.

Photo and article courtesy of The Colac Herald