Having been full of praise for the hospital staff at Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, I am totally the opposite with regard to the facilities offered by Hospedia who supply the TV, radio and internet services to the patients in the various wards throughout the hospital.
They have the franchise for the service which is totally exhorbitant to the patients offering service packages from £5 for eight hours to over £50 for packages which include e mails and movies.
During my third stay I took a package because the Olympic games were on and because I wanted to deal with e mails - not quite so easy, the e mail system was so slow it would not download anything for me and when I called to complain the operator said that this was because the system was now too old and obsolete !! Tried to see a movie but the images were so bad I gave up.
Thought that I might have learned my lesson, no - booked on, after trying six of the card dispensers, to see the Rugby Internationals on Saturday past ( not that Scotland were worth watching) however, fifteen minutes after switching on and into the game the system decided that it had to defrag or test itself - so about twenty points against Scotland later, it came back online. Called the Operator again, who just apologised, and eight hours later the system switched off - robbing so and so's
More conerning was the fact that there was already £5 credit left in the unit I was using, but when I registered the new card they deleted the credit - an added cash bonus to Hospedia - taking money for supplying no service - and a point not lost on the staff who feel it is a total rip off - Would not be so bad if Hospedia were to send the unused cash back to the Ward to be used for the welfare needs of the patients - in this case my ward was needing a new base unit for the relatives waiting room TV set.
This is just not my view this is a feeling being expressed by just about 100% of the patients.
Sort of in the same vein - the site of the old Royal Infirmary was sold to developers by the Health Board for £30 million, but the new hospital cost £170 plus million, some £10m over budget and as part of a PPI iniative - the car parking facilities cost from £1.30 per hour, with staff receiving reduced rates on the nightshift. Money spinner all round with the PPI folks rolling in cash. Many relatives are paying a fortune to use the car parks, sometimes for long hours when family are seriously ill - why can they not do the same as some cinemas and stores do - give a free pass out to those who are visiting or who are attending clinics?
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