When patient neglect becomes so appalling, so gut-wrenching, what do you do? How do you make it up to a patient whose existence has become no less than a horror movie? I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in thickening my skin any more.
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I need to talk about my patient today. My days in the hospital are frequently hard and heartbreaking, but nothing I haven't learned to shake off by the time I walk through my front door. Occasionally, I need a good cry on the drive home, but it's cathartic. I may hear monitor alarms in my sleep, but I don't see my patients.
I need to tell you about her twisted body. I need to tell the world about the pressure ulcers that took up the entirety of the flesh of her back. I would call the news, tweet, post, and blog about her single-digit BMI, but HIPAA holds my tongue. I wish I could tell you the full horror of this woman's condition, though, share the deformity of her tiny, fragile body.
This is not my first contracted patient, not my first cacechtic one. There is something about them all though, isn't there?
These neglected bodies- before I worked in a hospital I never even conceived this could be done to a person.
Neglect is a strange crime- so benign sounding for an act so utterly malevolent. And I cannot stomach it anymore. I cannot whisper "I'm sorry," into this woman's ear and just be that. For her, yes. I will treat her and advocate for the woman she still is within the contorted shell, whether she needs cure or comfort. I shouldn't say I- We.
My fellow nurses, whose hearts broke for him long before he came into my care, and the rest of our team- managers, doctors, social work, all trying to give whatever they can to make up for the crimes committed on this woman's body. She may or may not be "okay," but she will be well cared for, whether that means every intervention in the book or comfort care.
But I am not sated. Maybe this means I am making his pain about me, but I cannot shake this. Rather, I am shaken. When I was 17 I was Antigone in my high school play. My director had me work with this crazy, performance-artist friend of his, and she wanted me to do these primal screams. I never quite landed it, I think. But it's in me now. And I am out for blood.
No, that's not quite right. I need to see this injustice fixed. I need this to not happen. Maybe, most importantly, I need the "people" who "cared for" this woman at the nursing home to know what they've done and get the hell out of health care.
To every nurse, aide, doctor, therapist, hell, administrator who laid eyes on this woman in the past several months in the nursing home: you are a monster. Thanks to the wonder of electronic charting, we all know the condition she came to you in. And it is clear, it is brutally clear, no one has touched this woman in months. You passed her by because she could not complain. You thought the next shift would take care of it. She smelled bad. I don't know. I do know that this woman has gone through hell. You did this. And I can't fix it.
Can someone tell me what to do? A hint, a nudge, in the right direction? I need to do something about this nursing home. Fix it, shut it down, expose it, something. I have no experience in this area, and when I reach out to those immediately surrounding me, who might know the way, I'm told the red tape is insurmountable. Quite frankly, I worry about overstepping and putting my job on the line. But I can't let this happen again. I know it's only one facility and there are patients like this all over the country, the world... but I must try. I must. Please.
