Geriatric Medicine

Comprehensive Care Centre (Ward F4)

This Fremantle Hospital based outpatient service sees patients who require pre-operative assessment or have issues with:

• memory
• balance and mobility
• continence
• Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders
• stroke recovery
• multiple medical comorbidities.

Our tertiary level memory evaluation unit can be accessed through general clinics, while our nurse-led Advance Care Planning Clinic can be accessed through the department. 

Our multidisciplinary team includes:

• geriatricians
• geriatric advanced trainees
• clinical and registered nurses
• clinical nurse specialist in continence
• social work
• clinical psychology
• specialist physiotherapy (neurological, Parkinson’s disease, falls)
• specialist occupational therapy (neurological, Parkinson’s disease, falls)
• speech and language therapy
• dietetics.

The team actively includes carers and families in patients’ programs and management plans.

All routine outpatient general referrals to F4 Comprehensive Care Centre should be made on a general adult referral form available from the Central Referral Service (external site).

• Fax: 1300 365 056
• Post: Central Referral Service, GPO Box 2566, St Georges Terrace, WA 6831
• Via Secure Message (mMex): central@mmex.gsmhn.com.au

If the patient requires urgent review in a specialist clinic you must:

• first discuss this with the on-call consultant via Fremantle Hospital switchboard on 9431 3333
• clearly mark the referral 'urgent' and with the name of the doctor you have spoken to, and fax the referral and any attachments to the Fremantle Hospital Central Receipting Clinic on 9431 2009, or to the departmental fax if so directed, ensuring the fax header clearly identifies:
  • patient's name
  • clinic referred to
  • appointment date
  • total number of pages.

Consider Home Over Inpatient Care Every Time

The multidisciplinary Consider Home over Inpatient Care Every Time (CHOICE) program supports older adults aged over 65 years to transition home to reduce the amount of time spent in hospital and prevent hospital readmission where possible.

The CHOICE team provides:

• assessment of function and care coordination in a patient’s home environment or community
• a nursing outreach service
• a geriatrician ‘rapid response’ clinic.

Referrals are currently from within our hospital services only.

If you are a current CHOICE patient and need to contact the team directly please phone 0466 713 334.

Inpatient services

The following inpatient services and wards are available at Fremantle Hospital:

• Rapid Access and Treatment Unit (RATU) (or Ward 9N) provides acute assessment and treatment of patients with a likely length of stay of five days. Patients are referred from:
  • Fiona Stanley Hospital wards and Emergency Department
  • the community via the CHOICE team
  • direct admissions via the Virtual Emergency Medicine (VEM) service.
• Acute Geriatric Service (Ward 7N) manages acutely unwell patients with a length of stay likely to exceed one week.
• Orthogeriatric and General Rehabilitation (Ward 8S) focuses on patients aged over 65 years who are recovering from fractures. Some patients in need of general rehabilitation also come to this ward.
• Complex and General Rehabilitation ward (Ward 7S) focuses on complex medical and surgical patients who generally need a longer length of hospital stay.
• Neurorehabilitation (Ward D4)treats:
  • older patients recovering from stroke, head injury, and other neurological illnesses such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and Guillain Barre Syndrome
  • patients with progressive movement disorders, most commonly Parkinson’s disease, and those with complex behaviours due to neurodegenerative conditions.