Can I start by saying I LOVE MY JOB. I work as hard as I can and really genuinely care about my patients and want the best for them.
So can I just say that I am so sorry that on the day you decided to bring your adult daughter to hospital that some other members of the public where inconsiderate enough to have, MI's, be involved in a mutiple road accident or struggle to breathe so much they saturated in the 70's. I am sorry because this meant that you had to wait. I fully intend to speak with these people as to how inconvenient it was, for you, that they decided to be desperately ill!!!!
I'm equally sorry that every room was full and every doctor and nurse was desperately trying to saves lives and this meant you had to wait in a waiting room. I wonder if I have missed the point though - is there any other point of a waiting room than waiting???? I have yet to see a "soon as you arrive we will sort" room :)
I am so dreadfully sorry that when I assessed you relative and they told me that the injury was over a month old (yes I did say a month) and they had full range of movement and no bony tenderness that I would be unable to xray I wasn't being nasty or difficult (honest).
I am so sorry that you did not bond with our receptionist. I find her quite delightful. It might have something to do with you going up to the front desk every 5 minutes and shouting and swearing at her about the wait and expecting her to do something about it. I know our reception staff are fantastic but as yet they cannot assess diagnose and treat!!!
I am delighted that when you daughter was seen nothing abnormal was found but of course you did not share my delight and demanded a second opinion!! Second opinion same as the first!! It made me think of all the corageous patients I have to break awful life changing news to and how I would give anything to be able to say everything was fine nothing abnormal detected.
But angry relative the part I am stuck on and still has me shaking your head is you telling me on the way out that you used to be a nurse. It begs the question Then shouldn't you know better????????
I've read that too. I think their doctors yes them to death and send them to the ER and then the ER becomes the bad guy instead. "But my doctor said you would see me at once for my stubbed toe." Oy. lol
And seriously why shouldn't physicians be required to fill out a transfer of care form when they do this? I mean they have basically made an assessment and then referred and transferred care to the ER. Its time to stop passing the buck and start taking responsibility for their own assessment findings. Nurses who transfer patients from out patient satellite clinics to inpatient ERs have to so why shouldn't they?
I bet you they probably were not ever a nurse in the first place. If they were then they probably would have known that their daughter was just fine all along and they would know the demands in hospitals etc on nurses and doctors and would have understood the need for waiting. Hospitals work in the way that they treat the most urgent, life threatening and painful issues first, and then work their way down. If you are in there unconscious with a weak pulse of course they will be treated first before someone in mild pain with a sore ankle, and these sore ankles will be treated before someone with a slight sniffle or sore throat. The sooner people learn this the better. I think it is disgusting the way nursing staff are abused by patients and their friends and families. We are there to help them yet they treat us like scum, speak to us like rubbish, i for one will not and do not tolerate it. If i am harrassed by someone who wants to be seen i explain to them the patients that are behind closed doors, who can't be seen by those waiting in the waiting room, who we are working hard to try and save the lives of, and explain to them that they are in much more danger than those in the waiting rooms. When will these people learn that the world does not revolve around them and that we are hospitals, not take away joints where you can expect to walk in get what you want and walk out in a matter of minutes? The sooner the better.
VICEDRN, BSN, RN
1,078 Posts
And seriously why shouldn't physicians be required to fill out a transfer of care form when they do this? I mean they have basically made an assessment and then referred and transferred care to the ER. Its time to stop passing the buck and start taking responsibility for their own assessment findings. Nurses who transfer patients from out patient satellite clinics to inpatient ERs have to so why shouldn't they?