Sunday, August 22, 2004
We had some interesting health care moments this week. We learned a few interesting things, such as:
- Do not go into a walk-in clinic and see whoever is there. Two minutes later, you'll walk out with a mis-diagnosis and the wrong medication for your mis-diagnosis.
- The wait line at the emergency ward is horrendous, and this was particularly brought home by a nurse we chatted with for a bit. She said the only time the emergency room ran smoothly was when the official "counters" (people paid to count emergency patients and how long they're there) were there so our premier could say that he's helped reduce waiting time. Don't believe it for a second!
- If you do have to stay overnight, don't expect a bed before midnight, even if you've been there since 7:30 am. We were in emergency, with dozens of people waiting to get in, from 7:30 am to 1:00 am... almost 18 hours! And the ward my husband ended up on had empty beds, including the other one in his room which remained empty the entire time we were there. We heard it was because it kept the expenses higher in emergency and lower in the ward the person eventually would end up in.
- You'll have to clean your own bathroom, even after it has been cleaned. There were some obviously used stuff in there that had what looked like some blood on it, and there was a bit of blood on the sink. So, without touching anything, after more than a day of this, we just cleaned it ourselves. Yuck, gross and no wonder people pick up nasty bugs in the hospital.
- Junk food machines, pop machines and greasy food seem to be in abundance. Nurses admitted they pretty much lived off the junk food, which I found ironic and sad in a health care setting. The cafeteria food had some shaped chicken, greasy fish, fries and onion rings, all with some "gravy" that looked to be 100 years old. Nasty!! I won't go in to more detail as it makes me woozy.
