Admission

Any admissions that are non-emergency related are elective or arranged admissions. In these cases, you or a family member will be asked to complete admission paperwork.

When completing admission paperwork, you can elect whether to be treated as a public or private patient.

You will also be asked to provide details of any allergies you may have, including:

• antibiotics, pain medications or any other medicines
• any food allergies.

To ensure a smooth and efficient admission process, have these items ready before you arrive at the hospital.

Individual services and clinics may require additional items so check before arrival.

If attending a specialist outpatient appointment or pre-operative clinic for surgery, you will receive a confirmation letter or phone call in advance to tell you what to bring.

For identification purposes, ensure that you have the following items (as required) on admission:

• Medicare cards
• pension cards
• healthcare cards (reciprocal), national identity documents (passport or ID card)
• private health insurance cards
• veterans' affairs cards
• PBS safety net ID’s.

Bring any medications you take on a regular basis to the hospital on your admission, regardless of whether they are prescription medicines or not.

Bringing your medications into hospital allows us to give you better care and treatment by assisting hospital staff to:

• have a complete and accurate picture of what medications you are taking and ensure continuity of these medications
• make sure you are provided with/administered the correct medications in hospital
• identify any problems that you may be having with your current medications.

Bring any items that may make your stay more comfortable, such as:

• contact lenses or glasses and/or hearing aid and batteries
• small labelled overnight bag with clothing and toiletries
• personal wheelchair or walking frame.

If any electrical equipment is required in the hospital, for example phone chargers, it needs to be tested for electrical safety by the hospital engineering staff before being plugged in and used.

Talk to the ward clerk on duty to arrange testing of any electrical equipment.

Patients should not bring any valuables or money with them to hospital, other than a small amount for personal use. If valuables are brought to the hospital, you can ask a member of the nursing staff to deposit the items with the cashier for safekeeping.

The hospital takes no responsibility for any lost or stolen items.

This section outlines the arrival process including where to go for admission on the day and the steps that follow.

All patients are issued with a bracelet identification band that needs to be worn throughout their stay at the hospital. This is to ensure that they can be easily identified and are given the appropriate treatment and care.

The main patient identifiers on the bands include the patient’s name, date of birth and medical record number.

Patient identification bands come in a range of sizes.

As a public Medicare patient, no fees apply when you are admitted to the hospital, for the first 35 days. From day 36, if the treating doctor deems that you no longer require acute care, you will have an episode of care change, to a ‘nursing home’ type patient.

In these cases, patients will be charged $75.55 per day until discharge.

Fees for discharge medication/s applies to all patients.

On admission to the RAH, you can choose to be admitted as a private patient.

The benefits we receive from your private health insurance fund go directly to improving hospital facilities, updating equipment, and providing staff education and training.