7 Tips About Visiting Fiona Stanley Hospital

Many of us have the blessing of not having to visit hospitals much, however sometimes you just have to go, whether it be to visit family and friends or to be admitted yourself. Here are some tips for visiting Perth's newest and biggest hospital.

Dawn @ ICU in Fiona Stanley Hospital

For visitors - 

Free Parking - The only time you can get free parking is after 6pm on any day. Otherwise, there is ten minute parking at the Emergency area which is monitored by patrol staff. Streetside parking is $2 / hr monitored by the City of Melville and multi-storey parking is $3 / hr.

Visiting hours are to 8pm except Emergency which is at any time.

Food outlets - Subway, Jamaica Blue and Aroma have outlets there, as well as a couple of other stores. For coffee, Jamaica Blue is pretty decent and there is another takeaway coffee outlet on the other side of the hospital entrance.

Water - There are water dispensers opposite the food outlets so there's no need to pay $4 for a bottle of water. Waiting areas such as in the ICU section have filtered water on the taps.

View from Level 5 looking towards Murdoch Train Station

For patients - 

TV/Radio and Phones - Each ward has a TV and radio. TV is free for long stay patients but others will need to pay. Radio is free and each bed has a local phone number that you can call. Meals are ordered via the TV screen and in case you were wondering, do robots deliver food to patients? No, though food is automatically delivered to the level and then porters deliver the food.

Finally, is Fiona Stanley Hospital all that bad? It's a very clean, modern hospital with staff doing their best to look after our friends and family and they're doing pretty well. Next to Joondalup Health Campus, FSH is bearing the brunt of Perth's hospital needs.

Check before going into Emergency 

And if you are planning to go to an emergency department in Perth, check out this website first which tells you how long you will be waiting in all the public hospitals including how many Emergency patients are waiting for admission. Or call HealthDirect on 1800 022 222 if you are not sure whether you should go in, it may save you 3 hours wait.

Egiftcards - What are they and why use them?

So you may have heard of the term and wonder what they are and how they work? More importantly, why would someone want an egiftcard rather than a WISH gift card for example? I'll talk about Woolworths branded egiftcards because we buy these for our own use to save 5% which you can't do with Coles.

Egiftcards are giftcards that are emailed to you rather than sent via traditional post. When paying for your petrol or groceries etc, tell the shop assistant that you are paying via egift or egiftcard. They will then allow you to enter the 10 digit code and the 4 digit pin and the amount will be deducted from your invisible egiftcard.

Advantages 

• When you buy them via RAC website or the Entertainment book, you get 5% off 
• You receive them faster than you do if you were to order a traditional gift card
• You don't need to worry about losing your egiftcard
• You can go shopping without your wallet. Just remember or write down your 10 digit egift code and your 4 digit PIN. 
• You can check your Woolworths WISH and Everyday egiftcard balance here (for egiftcards currently, add 628000555 in front of your 10 digit code if you are going to use this site).

Disadvantages

• They are not really gift cards, because you are unlikely to give someone a sheet of paper and say "Happy Birthday". 
• Like with traditional gift cards, you need to keep track of how much is on your egiftcard yourself. The remaining balance is not printed on the receipt for Woolworths/Caltex stores so you need to enter it in your phone or something
• If you buy too many of these, you can lose track of how much you have on each gift card. It is good to keep track using your email, your phone or something. 
• As with all gift cards, you are limited 
• Sometimes mail services have problems opening up the pdf - "This file cannot be previewed because it has been corrupted" or "There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged and could not be repaired". If this happens, contact Woolworths here - giftcard@woolworths.com.au and they will fix the issue or send you a replacement.

Since this is relatively new technology, if a thief were to find in your wallet with a ten digit code and 4 digit pin, they might not know what to do with it. So now you know how these egiftcards work, pass this on to someone who doesn't.