Remember That Catastrophe…

Plainly said, hospitals as they are currently run are unsafe for patients.

You feel a twinge of pain in your back on the right side, and you wonder should I go see the provider, but you talk yourself out of going.

Three days later you feel sick, have a fever, and you have pain when you urinate. Now you have to go see the provider, who promptly sends you to the emergency room to rule out a kidney infection (pylonephritis).

You are triaged at the emergency room and then asked to take a seat. You wait 1….2…..3 hours.  People rush past you, bleeding, unconscious, screaming children, trauma patients, and you wait.  At 3 hours you ask how much longer, as your pain is worse and you feel dizzy.  You are told they only have enough staff to use 3 out of 8 patient rooms, and you will be brought back when they have an open room.  So you wait, 4…. 5…. 6 hours.

In a place you are supposed to get better, you are getting worse. 

Finally, they call your name.  You are assessed by a nurse, labs are taken, an IV is started and you are given IV fluids while you wait to see the ER provider. After 2 more hours  in walks a provider who says they are admitting you for a kidney infection.

45 minutes later you are wheeled into a Med-Surg room, helped onto a bed and you wait… A nurse comes in, takes your vitals, says they will be right back. An hour later you push your call light because the pain is getting worse.  Unbearable pain  along with fear that you will be left helpless takes hold. In a place you are supposed to get better, you are getting worse.  Staff flutter by with barely a moment to spare.

Billable patient care not the patient is the priority for the system.

– Speaking of staff: hospital staff, especially nurses, work in such a toxic environment that every moment is under intense pressure to get done what can’t be done. There is little time to care for their patients needs, and no time to care for their own needs. It is common for a nurse to not have meal or bathroom breaks through a 12-14 hour shift. For many sitting, hydration and snacks occur while charting the mandatory documentation. Up to 60% of new nurses leave the nursing profession within 1 year. Hospital administrators and the systems they work in focus so completely on their income they have cut support staff, increased nurse to patient ratios, shorted patient care supplies, and refused adequate pay; yet their salary has continued to increase, sometimes drastically, while they decry lack of funding. To that fact, it should be stated clearly that nurses are NOT a chargeable cost. At no time have insurance companies or administrators suggested billing for hospital nursing care. Your nursing care is wrapped up in your room cost. Nurses are not a credit to the hospital monetary system, they are a cost, and are treated as such. Yet, hospitals cannot function without nursing care for patients. Billable patient care not the patient is the priority for the system.

As a patient, you lay in your hospital bed, alone with only the call light as your connection to your helpers. That call light often gets answered remotely, or not at all. In some facilities a telenurse on a screen asks you what your need is. Your medications will be late, your mobility will be limited, and your pain uncontrolled, because there are too many patients and not enough staff. The most critical patients will get what little time the staff has. This is the experience that many hospital patients are having. This environment is harming our patients, and causing unnecessary injuries and deaths. Plainly said, hospitals as they are currently run are unsafe for patients.