Off The Cuff

The Hospital

Posted by: From Arkansas in Are You Kidding Me?, It's A Rant on May 30 2008

Welcome back!

I was going to say more in the title but that would take too long so I’m going to tell it here and now. Does anyone actually like going to a hospital? I didn’t think so. Because of that fact, you would think that they might make some effort to make these things as pleasant as they possibly can be, right? After all, the patient is the prime consideration. Beyond that, as long as the person who stays with the patient is doing some of the work the hospital staff has to do, they should be accorded some respect and kindness too, right? At least, you would think so. Sigh.

Last week, my husband went into the hospital for a heart cath. That’s where they insert a camera into the main artery in the right leg because it’s a major highway straight to the heart. A stress test showed that he had a small blockage in the front wall of his heart. The doctor decided to put in a stent which is a small piece of what I would call tubing that shores up the wall of the heart and takes the blockage out of the way. That may NOT be the way it really is but that was my understanding of it. The stent is there to help the heart work. And I felt, at that point, that I had had a stress test of my own.

Afterwards, he had to lie on his back for almost 10 hours, including the time prior to and including the time in the procedure itself. When the procedure was over, they brought him to his room which I will mention in a moment. He could now look forward to at least the two hours of non movement until the staff looked at the shield, left in his leg so he does not bleed out, and decide when to remove it. Then, it will be about 6 hours of lying still so it does not come open and he bleeds. All this is very important because he could bleed out in less than 15 minutes.

They wheeled him into a room that was designed by a total moron. Double room. That alone will get my hackles up because we requested a single. Now before you get all bent because we are too spoiled to live with others, that ain’t it at all. Part of this is because I was staying with him in a room with two men in it. Part is because my husband snores…….really loudly. They would be able to hear it at the nurses station down the hall. I knew that the guy in the next bed and his family would not like it at all.

To give you a picture of the room, it was really big. I liked that part. My husband had the second bed, the one next to the window, otherwise known as “No man’s land”. Why? I’ll be glad to tell you. The design of the room is such that the guy in the second bed gets nothing except the bed. The television is controlled by the first bed. There is only ONE tv. The bathroom is next to the door where you enter the room. Picture this. You walk into the room. Left side: bed, chairs, curtain, equipment, phone. Next to the door on the left, one bathroom. You have to walk past the visitor chairs (about a foot clearance) to go to the bathroom. On the right side…chalk board for messages from the nurses and aides, one television set. Walk on to the other side of the curtain and you see: bed, window, equipment, phone, chalk board. Notice, no chairs, nada.

They actually wondered why I was not happy. DUH! They finally brought me a chair to sit in. When I mentioned that we wanted a single, they said they would try to get one. I will say that, individually, the staff was great. They helped all they could with many things. In the meanwhile, my husband is lying there not moving while the guy next door can work the television and talk.

Finally, they came in and said that we had a single that he would be moved to in a while. It took about an hour or so. We got into a new room right before supper time. They had no food tray for him. But the nurses got them to bring one. Remember my husband had to lie still for all those hours. He would be free from that by 9:30pm. But not at supper time. Know what they brought him to eat while he was flat, almost, on his back? Spaghetti. Are you kidding me??????? I knew that my husband would work it out. He was hungry. After all, he wasn’t allowed to eat from the night before on until after the procedure. Yes, he was ravenous.

Okay, I realize that…in the larger scheme of things, this is not the world ending situation that it could have been. Got that. But it was a problem for us at a time when we were still trying to process the fact that he had a problem with his heart and someone was inside his heart to fix it. It may be common, ordinary, everyday stuff to you but it’s brand new to us. Besides, that room was designed by a MORON!!! The guy in the first bed has it all. The second bed is an afterthought. Oh, I should mention that the first time my husband was in that hospital some years ago, we stayed in a micro-room. It was designed for ONE person, same type television thing only the tv was on the OTHER side. Bathroom was, at least accessible for all. The room was so little that my chair to sleep in was invading the other guy’s room space. We could not help it. Nowhere else for me to be. Yes, I did have to stay with him. If you do not stay with the patient, sometimes…depending on the wing and floor….he might not get any help when needed. It happens frequently on one wing of that place….the one we were in then. Sigh.

In case you happen to live where there are several hospitals to choose from, we live in a very rural area. We lost the only hospital available when the county shut it down for code violations. It has never come back. We have an urgent care clinic that opens at, I believe it’s 7am and closes at 11pm. Yep, you got it. We have no medical coverage for our area during the night. Weekends they will open the clinic. We called to ask what doctor was on call for that clinic. Know what? It’s a secret. Won’t tell you until you check in to see the person and THEN they won’t tell if you don’t NEED a doctor. What’s up with that????????

Maybe I should not get started on piss poor health care in the Ozarks right now. The hospital in question is over 60 miles from our house. My husband’s cardiologist is associated with that particular hospital. Only if he wanted to start over with all the tests that Medicare will not pay because they have already been done would we have the option of going to another hospital. Go east, the hospitals are over 75 miles away. Go west, the hospital is about 70 miles away. Go north into another state and none of our doctors will send us there. Go south and you hit the hospital we did go to.

What’s the answer? Wish I knew. And that’s the rant for today. Uh, I will be putting up another rant to talk about the next visit we had there which was this yesterday and today. End of rant.

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