The waiting times in public hospitals can be months especially in Melbourne – for Category 2 and 3 patients. A colleague who works in a public hospital in the western suburds says he hardly sees any Category 2 or 3 patients getting onto his endoscopy list.
In smaller country public hospitals, the waiting list is thankfully shorter. This is only fair as country patients do not usually have access to a local private endoscopy centre(where one can pay a small centre fee to have the endoscopy with the endoscopist fees’ bulk billed to Medicare)
It is terribly important to follow the instructions for the bowel preparation. If not properly followed, there may still be faeculent fluid or worse still, thick faeces covering some of the lining of the large intestine. This could hide a small polyp. Also the procedure becomes longer as the endoscopist has to spend time trying to wash and suck out the faeculent fluid as much as possible. (This wouldalso mean the anaesthetist giving the patient more sedation)
Also it is important to avoid food with seeds in the few days preceeding the colonoscopy. Small seeds are a nightmare to the endoscopist as they become stuck in the suction channel of the scope when the faeculent fluid is sucked out!
Other things that have been seen during a colonoscopy include: pill granules, vegetable material …and even a fruit sticker stuck on the wall of the bowel!
Also the bowel preparation work best when one drinks plenty of fluids in order to “wash” out all the faeces in the colon. So remember to take lots of drinks when taking the bowel prep! (But avoid alcohol or coffee !)