Comments on: Every Hospital Patient Has a Story: The Decline of Compassionate Care giving in American Hospitals.

By: steve

steve — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 06:25:26 +0000

I tell a different story though i know a lot of what is commented on here to be true. But there are different perspectives. I am a nurse who wanted to believe i could treat others fairly and receive the same but its an out of control system and its ultimately governed by the greed of corporations owned by people/patients. I often hear patients complain about the quality and efficiency who don’t accept any of the responsibility of healthcare and are noncompliant with care as well. I am a nurse on a target from the administration, lawyers, doctors, other nurses,the board of nursing, families, other providers, and finally from patients. I am a nurse, the point of contact, where the buck stops, the shock absorber, faced with poor staffing, multiple patient needs, patient and family abuses, doctor abuses, and equipment failures, and on and on every day, every week, every year. I clean the shit and have it thrown at me. I draw the blood that splashes on me that could kill me. I am the angel if i tend to your needs and listen to your psychotic issues but i am the devil if i do so by ignoring my other patients. If i miss my lunch to tie your shoes for the twelth time in one night the job says why didn’t you punch out for lunch. When i do take care of everyone assuming i prioritize the most important needs for everyone’s loved one then that means i don’t care about poor little you enough. So you go report me as a bad old nurse and the stupid administration gets rid of another good nurse who used to believe in fairness. I didn’t do the dance well enough. So what happens stupid people? We adapt and survive. You fill in the blanks. Its like anything else in life. Unreasonable demands are met with constructive flexibility. So bitch and moan all you want but the bottom line is a broken system and if you aim your arrows at the provider who has the very means to give you the best they can then you are stupid and that is something i see that is not changing. Steve

By: * Hospital Horror *

* Hospital Horror * — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:09:58 +0000

I laughed a few times while reading this essay. This laughter gave me relief to the stress I’d been feeling this week during my mother’s nightmarish extended stay at a California hospital. This bit of relating—-to the horrors—- makes me feel not so bad and alone in my…well, being upset.

My mother was scheduled a standard operation— to have her female organs removed due to stage 1 cancer in her uterus. To make a long story short: She had an overdose of Diluadid. Code Blue called— 13 hours after surgery. A nurse gave Narcan to reverse. My poor father witnessed everything.

After the fact they put my mother through a battery of tests without explanation. Each health care professional referred to this “incident” with a meek delicateness calling it “her reaction” or “her sensitivity” or “episode.” Never explaining why the tests. If I did ask the answers were always cryptic. As my frustration began to mount I thought, “Why can’t they just call it for what it is—an overdose?”

The last nurse my mom spoke to today, whom called the house for a follow up on the visit —responded to my mothers question about the “episode” with a firm……the ball is in your court…..the blame is on you….something about….”sensitive.” My mother is sensitive to the drug. OK. But why didn’t they notice this before she stopped breathing?

Now, next week they want her to see a pulmonary specialist to check for a blood clot in her lungs. Nice. Forget the body scan, lung scan, heart stress tests, head scan that’s so last week….

I still think it was an overdose no matter what they say.

How can an almost 70 year old body after being almost completely shut down restart the ignition? Without new kinks in the engine?

I’ve lost trust and I’m frustrated.

By: Mary

Mary — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:12:33 +0000

No one that I’ve read about has mentioned the Veterans Hospitals. They act like we’re getting it for free. I was a Corpsman in the Navy, female, and am Service Connected of 40@ for cancer and Osteoporosis from an injury. Being a Corpsman, Medic, I know my rights. They don’t like that. Although I’m never rude or hateful, I have always been known to complain about the neglect and abuse, along with compliments of those who treat me well. After my last hospital stay, I’ve again gone to my patient advocate. To give a few compliments and tell him of the emotional abuse and neglect that I recieved while only pushing my call button three times within a week because I didn’t want to hear their crap or look into those eyes. I did tell him that the Nurses Aid gave better care than all the nurses put together. It could be that they’re used to old men who don’t know their rights. I’ve been forced to seek outside care for my other liver cancer, to avoid the stigma of also having HCV, which I got in the service, but didn’t file yet for it. Know your patient rights. Know the nurses and doctors responsibilities and your own. Then, when you get out of the hospital, go to you PA and get the paperwork to file a Tort complaint, if a Veterans Hospital, or get an attorney. I’m in the middle of filing a Tort Complaint. Yes, when it hits them in the belt, changes will be made, but with my SSD also, I’m never going back to the VA Hospital except for tests. I’m also getting 10% more disability. Was going to give up on it, but now, knowing my previous doctors caused it to get worse, my Osteoporosis from negligence. Don’t sit and do nothing. If you want something changed, YOU have to do it. Mary

By: nurse

nurse — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:33:09 +0000

I have read some of these comments and suggest that some of you pray that one of their
loved ones never becomes a Registered Professional Nurse and is subject to the disrespectful, clueless, bashing that we are, unfortunately subject to by some people
in society that think that we are glorified, paid “servants” to run, skip and jump
at the speed in which you feel is appropriate. I have been an RN for twenty years. I have worked in every area of the hospital setting and I can tell you that when I hear
a young person tell me they want to be a nurse now, I cringe for them. It truly is one of the most difficult jobs today. Management doesn’t give you enough staff,supplies,doctors avoid families and phone calls from us with your concerns,the bottom line is what’s important to the hospital. When we advocate for some patients,
we have problems with the doctor sometimes, but as patient advocate we are the ONLY
one who is their for you. The doctor writes a note to show he was there for the day so he can send a bill, we provide direct patient care, comfort the family, are responsible for contacting other disciplines necessary for you loved ones care, and you want us to
mop the stairs too? When most of the family doctors come to the intensive care unit where I work, they ask me how to treat their patient. We are not housekeepers, maids,
or babysitters. We are educated, trained, professionals and have worked hard, sacrificed
much, to get our education as well. The average age of the RN in this country is in their mid forties. It’s not a profession that people are running too. It’s a calling I
believe, and so do many that I know that I’ve worked beside. If you want respect, you must give respect. Most of us don’t have coffee breaks, lunch breaks, because we stay
where we are because we don’t want to leave our patients. We don’t need to be in the room to know what is going on. We have other responsibilities too. We must check orders, have endless charting and documentation to do, and so on.

By: TheHeartoftheMatter

TheHeartoftheMatter — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:40:04 +0000

Ms.Chesler,

I’ve worked as a Registered Nurse for 28 years thus far,and am wholly proud of the compassionate and intelligent care I give to my patients. My heart truly does fill with joy as I go about my work caring for the sick and the suffering.
In that spirit,I was feeling sorry for you as I read of your trials and tribulations.All human beings have the right to receive compassionate care. Sadly,while it is true there exist many examples of substandard care in hospitals the world over,there also exist many stories of wonderful care – which you have chosen not to acknowledge.

In any regard,any person,entering a hospital for care, who would so smear an entire profession as you have done,very likely would never feel satisfied with ANY standard of care received. You even chose to denigrate a “really nice,kind” nurse as “not professionally smart”,and intimated that she deliberately,not accidentally,left your leg compressors on.

Registered Nurses are NOT the lapdogs of the pampered,lettered,entitlement-seeking rich.
Whatever sage points you thought you were making were dissolved by these acidic,myopic, & disparaging remarks:

“Hospital personnel are easy to criticize. Could I do the job of a nurse or a nurse’s aide? I doubt it. The work is as repetitive as housework, it is “dirty” work and no one really wants to do it, one’s job is never done, there are always new patients crying out for attention and help. And yet, the salary is reasonable for the education achieved and the work is neither isolating nor undignified. While everyone assures me that there is a serious shortage of nurses (hence, the outsourcing of the profession), I myself did not see nurses overworked. What I saw were civil servants on a permanent work slowdown.”

THESE are words of which to be proud?

By: Alice

Alice — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:17:02 +0000

Phyllis, I was in a hospital in Dallas earlier this year for hip replacement surgery, and had similar experiences to yours, but without rage being directly expressed by the staff. Most of the time I had no family with me, since my husband and I have no other relatives nearby, and I was not aware of the need for my own nurse going in (or how useless even that could be). I wound up actively afraid of most the staff in the acute care ward and risked further injury just to make the transfer to the inpatient physical therapy ward (minor risk: faulty wheelchair).

For a while I thought it was just one bad hospital, but when I was going to outpatient physical therapy I met a woman who had had surgery in another hospital in town, one with a good image (good advertising). She complained about her treatment by the nursing staff including the Patient Care Aides, and I was shocked and disappointed when she told me where she had had surgery. She in turn was shocked and disappointed when I told here where I had had my surgery.

We both realized we are ‘in for it’ when we have to go back to a hospital, because both of us are over 60 and it’s inevitable at some point.

I’m all for a national conversation on the subject of hospital care and will participate if it occurs. In the meantime, I will try to find a hospital with a caring, competent staff in the Dallas area, and the quality of hospital nursing care will be a factor in where my husband and I move after retirement.

By: qwfwq

qwfwq — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:25:50 +0000

It’s too bad you didn’t go to a hospital like Northwestern Memorial, in Chicago. I was operated on there recently for a malignant melanoma, and I could not have been taken better care of if I owned the place. (I do not work there, and I’m just a regular person with a pretty good health plan.)

It runs like a Swiss clock and has a top-notch staff. I don’t know what their management is doing, but they are doing it right. I was absolutely astounded. It’s like a well-oiled machine. I’m sure from the staff’s point of view it’s not all beer and skittles, but from the patient’s point of view, it’s wonderful.

By: Revolution of the Soul | The Doctor Is In

Revolution of the Soul | The Doctor Is In — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:32:34 +0000

[...] 1: Phyllis Chesler’s recent piece, “Every hospital patient has a story“, at PajamasMedia. It is a piece to be read to completion, including its lengthy comment [...]

By: Carol Gould

Carol Gould — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:26:52 +0000

I live under the socialised NHS system in the UK but I subscribe to ‘BUPA,’ which is the private health care plan. I had breats surgery for a small lump and the treatment at the exclusive private hospital was atrocious. My British friends told me I would have had a pleasant and compassionate experience had I gone to Charing Cross Hosptial under the NHS as the staff are permanent and csre about their patients from beginning to end. Like Phyllis I had horrible, cruel, uncaring and often sadistic nurses at the private hospital. More recently I have had darling nurses and doctors for various health issues in the NHS. In July fell in Trafalgar Square and the NHS amblulance staff were just wonderful and so, so caring. Maybe there is a future for universal health care in the USA.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:21:13 +0000

Phyllis, I could barely get through this entire post. As someone who works in healthcare but as an independent contractor and also someone who temps and has been sent to work for administrative positions in hospitals I concur with everything you are saying and speak about. The problem is that you and I are seen as the pain in the ass, the troublemaker for speaking out — or calling for a dialogue as you put it. It’s sadly way too systemic. One of the reason’s I work for myself is because of the very reasons you mention. I get to work directly for my clients, on my clients behave and I do not have to be beholdant to the politics of this profession that in itself is just sick sick sick. While I am helping only one woman at a time, I can go home knowing I did only what was right for that woman.

I am so sorry this happened to you. Perhaps with your clout you can do something amazing to change this.