Breast Care Nurses

@soldiercrab  in my view also, hit the nail on the head!  No doubt with some of the Breast nurses they have a huge workload and I guess that we are categorised hence there's perhaps always someone else as a priority!
At least we have the option of this forum, BCNA helpline and other organisations and our GP to ask for support services within our area

I emailed the breastcare nurse I dealt with during my surgery to find out information about reconstruction evenings so will see if I get a response. 

My original post for this thread was the result of reading other people's posts over the months and my early morning musings.  Although I recognised that there were widely varying experiences, I never expected such a big response.  It's clear that for some people, the bc nurses have been invaluable in helping them cope and navigate through their issues and for others, they're of little or no value at all (my experience), and seem to be just a marketing gimmick.  There have been a couple of suggestions that the role of the bc nurse needs to be explicity explained and perhaps this should also include the expected longevity of the relationship between nurse and patient.  I look forward to the possibility of meeting a new bc nurse in August when I have rads in a public hospital and maybe having a different experience.

Since my radiation ended nearly 2 weeks ago. I have had skin peeling and very sore. The therapy centre dressed the area and gave me supplies for home. They said a community nurse would contact me which they did the next day and visited the next and did a dressing and left me with more supplies. The nurse asked if I had been in touch with Palliative Care. Well I hadn't even heard of them. She said it's not only for end of life care but offer lots of help. Maybe if anyone has this service close to them they could contact them. Although my hubby does my dressings the nurse said I could go to one of their clinics to get the dressings done as I felt the nurses time was  needed for those who couldn't get out and about. 

I had a breast care nurse sit in with me when I saw the breast surgeon. When the results of the bone scan showed that I was stage 4, straight to the medical oncologist and never saw the breast care nurse again, that was 2016.  Nor did she ring me to check or sit in with my initial consultation with the medical onc. 
Although, today my visit the oncologist, I noticed a McGrath nurse around, sitting in with patients & today my oncologist asked if I had one. 
Maybe I’ll get one next time

Hi all, I've been following this thread with interest. I think a lot depends on the individual hospital, be it public or private. I've had experiences at both ends of the spectrum.
I live in a large regional centre, whose health system serves a population probably in excess of 600 000 people. There are 3 publicly funded bcn's plus a specialist metastatic bcn.
I had neoadjuvant chemo, and self referred to to the bcn's, as I knew I could. In our first phone conversation, after leaving 2 or 3 messages, I was told I could ring and make an appointment with one of them. When I went to do this, it wasn't that easy, but did eventually get an appointment. The nurse I met was very pleasant,  professional, helpful. I was told if I needed to see them again, to come in to their drop in clinic, held one afternoon per week on a day I worked,  which meant i would need to take time off work to go.  I was also told I could call or email, and someone would get back to me. I'm still waiting for a callback on at least 2 messages I left..... over 2&1/2 years ago. Emails didn't get a response until I started mentioning the possibility of making a complaint. 
I was a public patient for chemo and radiotherapy.

I opted to have my surgery as a private patient in a state capital. I met a bcn pre-op on the day of surgery. Because I was from out of town, my surgeon kept me in for longer than standard, in case I neede further surgery, which I did. Other than the weekend, I saw one of the 3 bcn's at that hospital every day of my stay, both individually, and with my surgeon. I rang them a few times with concerns down the track. I had a weekly call from them for the first few weeks, then monthly, gradually dropping off to 6-8 weeks between calls until well over 12 months after my surgery.  They were fantastic. I only wished I'd lived closer to be able to visit them at times with my concerns.

I know that I can still attend the local drop in clinic if I need to. And they were the ones who told me not to wait for my scheduled appointment when my lympoedema was developing, before anything obvious happened,  so I thank them for that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can also have a good experience with bcn's in the private sector, and a poor experience in the public sector, or vice versa. A lot can dependon work load and pressures, although as patients we shouldn't need to know about that stuff.

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I think @SoldierCrab  has hit the nail on the head.  It's a bit like doctors I suppose.  Some are hugely sympathetic, some are straight down the line, some you have to constantly ask questions to get answers. Some are planning their next golf game.

I let my BCN off the hook so to speak after I changed oncologists and went to a different hospital so she could spend more time with newly diagnosed patients.  I was ok and didn't feel the need to contact her really by that stage.  I could have rang anytime though.

Public vs private.  I think it depends on the hospitals as well.  Some people have great service in the public system and some people have shitty service and follow up in the private system.  

I had no issues at all, I went public for the surgery and got admitted as a public patient in a private hospital for chemo and radiation. Both hospitals and every nurse or Dr I dealt with was awesome. 

I was diagnosed on a Friday,  I had just gotten back from my GP with the dreaded news and the hospital rang.  Surgical apt the following Friday  If I had of chosen  the mastectomy instead of lumpectomy I would have been able to have my surgery on the Monday with the same surgeon I could have paid a lot of money to if I had gone to his rooms around the corner from the hospital.   It was my choice to chase around the primary lesion as it couldn't be felt, so it was one month to the day. 

Generally elective surgery will get shuffled to make way for more urgent cases. 

The whole thing is a team effort and maybe that is sometimes why the public system is more of a well oiled machine. Everyone knows how the other members work, everyone follows up because they don't want their butts kicked by the powers that be.

Don't know.  Just a though

Back to the original subject.  More funding, more nurses.  

@Joannie I would like to know the job parameters and description too. I don't want to impose or overstep. Is the provision of a BCN an 'entitlement' or is it a courtesy?

Sometimes I have questions, should a doctor answer them or is it OK to get the answers from BCN? Sometimes I want a skilled shoulder to cry on, should I make an appointment to see a psychologist, or call the BCN? I don't know.

Last year when I was diagnosed with B/C at the breast screen at Bentleigh East the Surgeon who told me 
was cold,impersonal and clincial on the other hand the Breast Care Nurse was great before I had my operation I saw a nother one she was attached to the 
Private Hospital and she was also good I only saw them once and no further contact was made, I needed their support and knowledge when I saw the Radation Oncologist who told me It was my decision to have radiation treatment or not I chose to have treatment, fortunately my Medical Oncologist and the Surgeon was the opposite and took great care of me, the luck of the draw. Best Wishes