For planned surgery, the hospital will contact you to confirm the date of the surgery. You will be telephoned on the working day prior to the surgery and will be advised on what time you should arrive at the hospital and your child’s fasting time.

This information is very important, so please take the call when the hospital contacts you on your preferred telephone number. Typical fasting times would be 4 hours for breast milk and water, and 6 hours for all other liquids and solids. Generally, unless there are specific medical issues, such as a child with diabetes, the list will proceed in age order with youngest child first.

On the day of the surgery, you may need to complete additional documentation once you arrive. After you have been checked in by the administrative and nursing staff, you will be reviewed by my anaesthetist. They will also examine your child to make sure that they are fit for surgery.

If you have a number of additional questions about the surgery before the procedure, due to limited time on the day, we recommend that you book an additional consultation prior to the day of surgery.

Generally, one guardian will accompany the child to the anaesthetic bay whilst the child is put to sleep. You will then be escorted to the waiting area where your surgeon will meet you after the procedure has been completed. Once the child wakes in recovery, one guardian will be called through to stay by them. Typically, patients will be in recovery and then a step down area for 1 to 2 hours after surgery has been completed. Some children may need to stay longer if they have any special medical problems, remain drowsy from their premedication or experience nausea and vomiting following their anaesthetic.

Generally we ask you to make arrangements to be seen in the rooms between 3 to 6 weeks following surgery to ensure satisfactory wound healing. For those children needing to have a drain or catheter removed, an additional appointment one week after the surgery with the clinic nurse will be made prior to discharge.

When the patient is seen in the rooms, you will be required to pay for your consultation at the time of the appointment. You will be advised of the cost of the consultation at the time of your appointment, some of the cost will be covered by Medicare. The current amount of the rebate can be determined by contacting Medicare on 132 011. Please note that you must have a current referral in order to claim this rebate from Medicare. Referrals from another specialist such as a Paediatrician are only valid for 3 months, whereas those from your GP may be valid for up to 12 months.

For those patients electing to have their child’s surgery at a private hospital or as a private patient in a public hospital, your surgery will be performed by your consultant paediatric surgeon and the anaesthetic by a consultant paediatric anaesthetist. The charges involved will be discussed with you at the time of your consultation and you will also be provided with a written financial quotation. You are strongly advised to contact your health fund and Medicare to confirm any additional cost to yourself between our fees and rebate you will receive. Please note that you will need to contact the hospital to discuss any excess that you may need to pay in relation to their fees. In general, most health funds will fully rebate day-case surgery in a child.

For those parents who elect to have their eligible child treated as a Medicare patient at a public hospital, there will be no cost for treatment. Please note that, as both Fiona Stanley Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital for Children are teaching hospitals, the surgery would normally be performed by a surgeon in training. Similarly, the anaesthetic would also generally be performed by an anaesthetic doctor in training. Your subsequent follow-up would also be in the public out-patient clinic of the hospital at which the surgery was performed.

Surgeon can be contacted via our rooms 61621615 during normal office hours or via Princess Margaret Hospital Phone 93408222. In an event of emergency, please bring your child to emergency department at Princess Margret Hospital for children, you can contact duty surgical registrar at Princess Margaret Hospital on phone 93408186.