If your operation is in the morning, do not eat anything after midnight but you may have water to drink until 6:00am. For afternoon operations, have a light breakfast of toast or cereal (not a cooked breakfast) before 7.30am. You may drink water up until 11:00am. Babies can be breast fed up to three hours before surgery and bottle fed babies up to four hours before surgery. They may continue to have water up until two hours before surgery.
Completing Your Admission Questionnaire
Contact the hospital if you have any problems completing the form. You may be contacted by a Registered Nurse prior to your admission requesting further information/clarification of your health history. We recommend that you read your information booklet to assist you in completing your questionnaire.
Medications
PLEASE BRING ALL YOUR CURRENT DRUGS AND MEDICINES WITH YOU in their original containers.
If your medications are dispensed from your pharmacy in BLISTER PACKS please organise to have a week’s supply dispensed in individual containers.
Complementary and Alternative Medicines (herbal/natural and vitamins supplements) must be stopped two weeks prior to your surgery.
Take your usual medication on the morning of surgery with a sip of water, unless you have been instructed otherwise. If you have diabetes and on insulin and/or oral diabetes medication such as hypoglycaemics or gliflozins you will be contacted with further preoperative instructions.
You also will be given special instructions regarding:
- Diuretics (water pills).
- Anticoagulant therapies (Blood thinners) e.g., dabigatran, warfarin, aspirin.
- Blood pressure medication.
If you are unsure about taking any of your medications prior to your surgery please contact Bidwill Hospital and ask to speak to a Registered Nurse for further advice.
What To Bring
We recommend you bring glasses, contact lenses and hearing aids and any other aids required for your post op recovery especially crutches.
You will need comfortable/casual loose-fitting clothes. If you are staying overnight, you will also require a dressing gown, night wear, toiletries.
