Paddy

Paddy was badly injured in an accident in his late teens and became paraplegic. Nearly two years later he experiences episodes of breakthrough neuropathic pain, sometimes in clusters, about every two weeks.

‘This is one of the awful side effects of paraplegia and a common experience for many people with paraplegia or quadriplegia,’ Paddy’s support person Angela explained.

Paddy told the Royal Commission that during hospitalisation after the accident, the nursing staff bullied him. He now has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) associated with hospital visits. When he goes to hospital to manage neuropathic pain, Angela goes with him to help mediate his interactions with medical staff and manage his PTSD.

During a COVID-19 lockdown, Paddy had a pain episode and went to hospital in an ambulance. When Angela got to the emergency department (ED) soon after, staff would not allow her to see him.

‘I had explained to the paramedics and to the doctors within the hospital ED that [Paddy] needed to have a support person. He’s got specific trauma related to hospital presentation … And they refused entry to me. They said there’s no way that you can be admitted to go to [Paddy’s] bedside,”’ Angela recalled.

‘The supervising nurse even said to me, “The only situation is if a person is dying. And he’s not dying, is he?” So, yeah, a fairly average tone.’

Paddy had been put in a room on the ED ward. Staff put his wheelchair outside the door. After several hours he rang the call bell and waited for 45 minutes, but no-one came.

‘And, I’ve been, you know, sort of yelling – not yelling, but, like, saying, “Hey, like, see if anyone could come into the room?” … I was in a lot of pain. So I started getting quite angry,’ he said.

‘The nurses were yelling back at me. They weren’t providing any calming process or anything. They were slamming the door and restricting my wheelchair from me.’

Eventually, staff placed Paddy’s wheelchair within reach. ‘And he wheeled himself out of Emergency, still in 10 out of 10 pain,’ said Angela.

After this, Paddy submitted a complaint to the hospital. It did not respond. The state’s health oversight board is now following the matter up.

‘It’s not like I went in there, you know, getting angry and yelling. I was – I understand it. Emergency departments especially at that time they’re very, you know, busy and hectic places. But, it was – it reached a whole new point, three hours with no pain relief, 45 minutes with the call bell being on, my wheelchair being held from me. Like, you know, that’s when it’s not cool for me. I couldn’t put up with that,’ said Paddy.

Since this experience, Paddy has started having anxiety attacks. He no longer attends that hospital and is consulting a private specialist about a pain management plan. He wants to see improved training for nursing staff so they better understand people in his situation.

‘I’m just dumbfounded that they would have so little idea of disability and what I'm going through, in terms of pain and stuff. I think there should be much more attention going into that … I get that disability and chronic pain is a tricky thing to deal with in ED. But I think there needs to be – as a nurse, you should be able to deal with something like that,’ he said.

‘I think they just think, you know, “I’m a nurse. And it’s just a 19-year-old kid” … but somehow I know more about this stuff than public nurses do, which is not how it should be at all.’