A NURSE says a dedicated breast unit at a Worcester hospital will allow patients to be treated with the privacy and dignity they deserve.
Staff at Worcestershire Royal Hospital do their best to make patients feel comfortable during their diagnosis and treatment and for prosthesis fitting after breast surgery. But the prosthesis fitting currently takes place behind a curtain in a busy office, which is unsatisfactory for patients who have to go through such a sensitive and intimate procedure.
Breast patients often have to wait in crowded waiting rooms that are not designed specifically to meet the needs of these patients, and the clinics themselves are spread out through the hospital.
Nurse practitioner Linda Cooke said it was difficult to preserve the privacy and dignity of patients in the current surroundings, but the new £2.5 million unit would improve the care patients received.
The existing clinics are in Mulberry Suite, Sorrel Suite and Clover Suite, and patients have been known to get lost moving between them.
Ms Cooke said: “From the point of view of privacy, the new unit would be much better. It would just be breast patients using the new unit and it is nicer for them to be with other breast patients. The phone is always going in the office and sometimes we want to sit down and have a quiet chat with patients.
The new unit will have a room where patients can talk about diagnosis and treatment.
“It is such a sensitive time for them. Breast patients get very anxious. Most patients who come to clinics don’t have breast cancer, but people coming to the clinics often think they have. They are waiting very anxiously to be seen. We can make the clinical environment more comfortable for them. For those people who are diagnosed, we want to be able to have all their investigations on the same day, in one area and have somewhere quiet where they can sit and chat or just relax.”
Steven Thrush, the breast consultant for the campaign, has already said a dedicated breast unit will cut waiting times in half for patients from three to four hours to one-and-a-half hours.
If the money can be raised work can begin within 18 months and the unit could be completed within three years.
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