Tracy Geeves
October 2020
Tracy
Geeves
,
RN
7A, Medical Specialities - Royal Hobart Hospital
Tasmanian Health Service
Tracy had arranged temporary permission from her manager to bring Mum downstairs in a wheelchair to an empty ward and to collect me from outside to bring me to see Mum.
I live in Melbourne (COVID Central in Australia) and my 92 year old mother has been in the Hospital since a fall at home in September. I was refused permission to come to Tasmania due to strict border controls since Tasmania is COVID-free and I am living through Melbourne's second wave of Stage 4 lockdown which is miserable.
Mum's doctor rang me on to say she had become gravely ill overnight and he arranged for the RHH to provide me with a letter of support for my second application to travel to Hobart. I was amazed to have permit approval arrive in my email inbox on Friday at 7:30 pm so booked the flight the next day and texted Mum I would see her that night. I had to wait 2 hours for the hotel's Govt Liaison Officer (GLO) to make contact so I could ask about leaving to visit RHH as permitted. Finally able to walk (I tried not to run in my PPE) the 15 mins to RHH from the hotel and upon arrival and complying with the 18 questions survey I had to do at the entrance and talk to the duty door nurse I learned that I needed visiting permission from Ward 7A as well - it was around 6 pm and I was in tears sitting outside the hospital, refused entry.
The kind door nurse brought me an instant coffee while I phoned Ward 7A to find out how to get a permit to visit Mum. The 7A nurse took my mobile phone number after explaining the procedure and later called me back to say her NUM had made a compassionate exemption upon her petitioning on my behalf. Her name was Tracy and she had arranged temporary permission from her manager to bring Mum downstairs in a wheelchair to an empty ward and to collect me from outside to bring me to see Mum.
I was overjoyed to see Mum was much improved from what I had been told 3 days earlier and Tracy stayed a polite distance away while Mum and I chatted from a required 2 metre distance. Tracy gave us about 30 minutes together before she apologetically came to say she had to return to her ward duties, so I had to leave.
As a strictly controlled quarantine visitor I was required to go to/from RHH to the hotel without deviation - eg. to buy Tracy flowers for the trouble she went to that meant so much to my 92-year-old mother and me her 60-year-old daughter visiting from COVID central.
Tracy is a DAISY Nurse for showing extraordinary compassion at a time that meant so much to my Mum and I at a time when I had taken so many steps just to be there. I was not allowed to visit Mum the next day as the required person who could authorise my visits was not on duty until the following Monday. I can't imagine how wretched I'd have felt if I had not been able to see Mum until the Monday evening after arriving on the Saturday, expressly to see her. Thank you so much to Tracy.
Mum's doctor rang me on to say she had become gravely ill overnight and he arranged for the RHH to provide me with a letter of support for my second application to travel to Hobart. I was amazed to have permit approval arrive in my email inbox on Friday at 7:30 pm so booked the flight the next day and texted Mum I would see her that night. I had to wait 2 hours for the hotel's Govt Liaison Officer (GLO) to make contact so I could ask about leaving to visit RHH as permitted. Finally able to walk (I tried not to run in my PPE) the 15 mins to RHH from the hotel and upon arrival and complying with the 18 questions survey I had to do at the entrance and talk to the duty door nurse I learned that I needed visiting permission from Ward 7A as well - it was around 6 pm and I was in tears sitting outside the hospital, refused entry.
The kind door nurse brought me an instant coffee while I phoned Ward 7A to find out how to get a permit to visit Mum. The 7A nurse took my mobile phone number after explaining the procedure and later called me back to say her NUM had made a compassionate exemption upon her petitioning on my behalf. Her name was Tracy and she had arranged temporary permission from her manager to bring Mum downstairs in a wheelchair to an empty ward and to collect me from outside to bring me to see Mum.
I was overjoyed to see Mum was much improved from what I had been told 3 days earlier and Tracy stayed a polite distance away while Mum and I chatted from a required 2 metre distance. Tracy gave us about 30 minutes together before she apologetically came to say she had to return to her ward duties, so I had to leave.
As a strictly controlled quarantine visitor I was required to go to/from RHH to the hotel without deviation - eg. to buy Tracy flowers for the trouble she went to that meant so much to my 92-year-old mother and me her 60-year-old daughter visiting from COVID central.
Tracy is a DAISY Nurse for showing extraordinary compassion at a time that meant so much to my Mum and I at a time when I had taken so many steps just to be there. I was not allowed to visit Mum the next day as the required person who could authorise my visits was not on duty until the following Monday. I can't imagine how wretched I'd have felt if I had not been able to see Mum until the Monday evening after arriving on the Saturday, expressly to see her. Thank you so much to Tracy.