Monday 8 January 2018

The stress of being ill

is bad enough without the added stress of loss of services or the relocation of services to places without other essential facilities. I really do wonder whether those who designed the monstrosity which claims to be a "world class" hospital consulted the medical profession at all.
Did they even bother to make a list of all the facilities available at - or adjacent to - the old hospital? It would seem not. 
I think I have complained elsewhere that there are actually no facilities for the staff?
Hospitals are of course there for the patients. The patients are - or should be - the first priority. It is a curious thing however that patients actually need people to care for them. You know who I mean, doctors, nurses, technicians, cleaners, orderlies and more.  There are no facilities for those people, some of whom work long hours in very stressful jobs. 
Want the doctor to remain good-tempered? Then provide somewhere safe for him/her to leave personal belongings, sit down for two minutes and gulp down a cup of tea or coffee they don't have to buy from the over-priced "cafe" on the ground floor - about as far away from where they are working as possible. Oh and that assumes they want that cup of tea or coffee during the hours the cafe is actually open. 
Yes I was on the receiving end of snappy remarks but it wasn't the doctor's fault and he apologised profusely a minute later. He'd had enough. I don't blame him. He had been working eleven hours without a break. He had a patient who couldn't communicate and nobody knew who the patient was or what his medical history was. The man had been brought in off the streets. He wasn't drunk and he hadn't overdosed but there was something seriously wrong. Deaf? No. He could hear but he didn't seem to understand and he didn't speak. I tried a greeting in a variety of languages but none of them helped. Other staff tried in other languages but that didn't help either.  He seemed not to be able to read or write. Mentally ill? No, I don't think so - or only in so far as any street person is. He met my eyes and those of the doctor with a pleading that was hard to take. I mimed things - but I am not a good actor. I tried to draw something. He took the pen from my hand and drew a stick figure and pointed to himself and then to various parts of his body. It didn't get us much further. He seemed to have some sort of severe receptive dysphasia. The doctor tried to touch him but got pushed away. He pointed at me and I tried under the doctor's instructions...I felt a lump in first one place and then another where lumps should not be. I didn't need to be a doctor to guess what that meant.
      "Let's see what we can do to make him comfortable then - if he'll stay. There might be a bed at the hospice."
      "He won't go in an ambulance," I said without thinking...which is when the doctor blew up at me. But then he apologised. 
No, this man wasn't going in an ambulance. He needed to be there, where he was. There should be facilities there for the city's "down and outs" - a place where they can go for help, to feel safe. There should be a place where overworked doctors can "pop in" to such people and then go and take a few minutes break.
I'll never know what happened to the man who was brought in. I may never see that doctor again but if ever he needed a place to sit  down for just a few minutes with a cup of tea or coffee it was then. Instead, he had to give what instructions he could and go on to the next patient...and no doubt the next and the next.
I waited until someone arrived from one of the city shelters and left. There was nowhere for him to get a drink either.
There's something seriously wrong with the design of that new facility.
     

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obviously designed by people who have no idea how a hospital should work. What a waste of money.

Jodiebodie said...

And then there is the new dental hospital. All the dentists in Frome Road were forced to move to a new building built by the University and leased to the Health Dept for the dental hospital - except dentists are professionals with professional resources and reference materials. The dentists were not allowed to take all of their reference materials etc. to their new workplace because no allowance had been made for storage of such things! That is just as bad as a brand new hospital that didn't take into account the weight of paper records that are still in use. Or the brand new hospital that has a great big plaza that is not functional for the people that need to use it with no rest platforms in the pavement, no seating and no handrails and all of this on a very long incline. Absolutely useless!