There have been reports on the internet recently about allegations that a Ms Percy McCarthy, a 45 year old “team leader” amongst the nurses at the Hospital for Specialist Surgery at Bella Vista in Sydney, stole the credit cards of one of the hospital’s patients, a 77 year old woman recovering from cancer surgery, and kept assaulting her until she gave her the pin numbers, and then drew $1,000 out of her accounts – of which this is one.
These reports led to this letter being emailed to Ms Rosemary McDonald, the hospital’s general manager, using the email form on the the hospital’s website.
This response came back from a James Croll, the hospital’s Marketing Manager.
A response sent to James.
James’ response.
A response sent to James.
A further response sent to James.
James’ response.
Quite apart from the facts of this particular matter, the concern is that it wasn’t possible to find an ordinary email address on the hospital’s website which could be used to draw the attention of the hospital’s management to any problems, and that even after this correspondence, such an email address still hasn’t been made available.
Of course, James Croll’s ordinary email address – JamesCroll@hssaustralia.com.au – has been made available, but this wasn’t quite what we had in mind. We’re not sure that if we’ve had a problem with one of the nurses, or with a stranger who’s gained unauthorised entrance to the hospital, that sending emails to a Marketing Manager seems like the best idea.
In our experience, many people and organisations absolutely HATE ordinary email addresses, probably because those who use them to send emails so easily end up with great evidence as to what was sent, and to whom, and when – and this hospital may be one of them.