After 14 weeks in Cairns Hospital, 88-year-old Jim Copp was relieved to be able to finish his hospital care at home.
‘Hospital in the Home’ provides hospital equivalent care in a person’s home.
Cairns Hospital currently manages up to 30 Hospital in the Home patients each day.
As a Hospital in the Home patient Jim, and his wife Maggie, were visited by nurses and doctors for three weeks to give him the care, monitoring and treatment that he would have received in a traditional hospital bed.
Registered Nurse Alisa Adlam was one of the first to visit Jim as a patient in his home. ‘My role was to make sure Jim and Maggie were OK with their medication and to support Jim with his special diet,’ said Alisa.
‘Patients are much happier at home,’ said Alisa. ‘They are sleeping better, they have their own food and they have all the comforts and familiarity of home. I would choose Hospital in the Home for myself.’
‘Jim was desperate to come home,’ said Maggie. ‘Hospital in the Home has been marvellous. We felt very supported by the doctors and nurses and we had their phone numbers if we had concerns.’
After three weeks in ‘Hospital in the Home’, Jim was discharged and is doing much better. He now sees a physiotherapist at home with the Cairns Hospital’s Transition Care Program.
Clinical Director Dr Carmon Guy said that Hospital in the Home provides hospital level care for patients who are suitable for step-down from the ward to their home environment.
‘We provide providing high quality clinical services for acute medical conditions that would otherwise require a traditional public hospital bed,’ said Dr Guy.
‘Some of the common conditions we help to manage are cellulitis, urinary tract infections, melioidosis, severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, blood clot/s in the legs or lungs, pneumonia and mastitis.’
‘The ‘Hospital in the Home’ service provides patients of all ages a high-level care in the comfort of their own home, so they don’t have to stay in hospital,’ said Dr Guy.
Ask your doctor whether you can receive hospital care at home.
‘Your doctor can contact us and we will consider your care needs, your health condition and home environment,’ said Dr Guy.
Read more about Hospital in the Home.