"I was a patient at the SWLEOC ..."

What could be improved

I was a patient at the SWLEOC on November 22 for a complete hip replacement.

Six hours after the operation I was taken to the radiography department for a follow-up X-ray on the replaced hip. I was wheeled there in my hospital bed, and was then transferred to the X-ray table.

The two porters assigned to this task could not have been more gentle, but the pain experienced as I was lifted, rolled and manhandled onto the X-ray table was excruciating, far greater than any experienced during the operation or the subsequent recuperation.

Surely it not beyond the wit of man to devise a bed which could be wheeled straight under the X-ray apparatus, thereby cutting out the need for the painful and distressing transfer from one bed to the other?

Fortunately I am quite robust, but I shudder to think of someone perhaps more frail and elderly undergoing that dreadfully painful experience unnecessarily.

Yours faithfully,

Stuart McGugan