What time should I go to hospital?

If you are having an operation in the public hospital, the hospital will contact you about 1 month prior to surgery and ask you to attend for a preoperative assessment by the hospital anaesthetic team. The hospital will notify you of the time to arrive on the day of your operation.

In the private hospital setting, your date will be allocated at the time of consultation or soon thereafter and you will be seen by your private anaesthetist prior to or on the day of surgery. The private hospital will notify you, the day prior to surgery, of the time to arrive on the day of your operation.

Do I need to fast?

Yes, you do. Patients having morning surgery need to be fasted from 12 midnight and patients having afternoon surgery are permitted to have a light breakfast and fast from 0700 hours.

Medications

All patients taking a tablet that causes bleeding must stop the tablets prior to surgery.

This includes the following medications:

Aspirin – 2 weeks

Plavix or Iscover – 2 weeks

Warfarin – 5 days

Herbal medications eg St John’s Wort – 2 weeks

Factor X inhibitors eg Xarelto -3 days

Professor Sidhu will discuss these medications at the time of consultation.

Neck exercises

To gain access to the thyroid gland the neck is tilted backwards. To help relieve soreness and swelling we recommend neck exercises prior to the surgery. Neck exercises booklet can be found here.