She asked me about whether a line had been nearly pulled out, which made me wonder what the nurse had told her. I assured her that my line had not come close to being ripped out of my chest, and that my personal transport experience had been good except for the pump at the end. (I later learned that she and the nurse both understood the problem to be that the pump end of a line had been almost detached from the pump.)
I shifted to the bigger and widely acknowledged problem, which I had personally experienced early in my stay: patients often wait too long to get back to their room. We’re sick, we’re scared, we have no idea how long we’re going to wait, we worry that we have slipped through the cracks – leaving us in a corridor or waiting area puts a lot of stress on a body that already has too much.
The response was manager-speak: we hear you, bear with us, we’re working on it, we have our good days and bad days, she was very sorry for my experience. She left me her name and number, in case I wanted to talk again.
It was now close to dinnertime, so I figured the teeth x-ray had been pushed to Wednesday. I had dinner. I talked to family on the phone. I had a great walk, right at the change of shift, so all the nurses and assistants were out in the halls preparing their carts. It's crowded, but they appreciate the effort I'm making. They start giving each other grief about how they should be able to walk a mile if Mr. Seeley can walk two. "Without hemoglobin," I remind them (not technically true).
Back to my room, relax, talk to Jan, getting ready for bed...
[Knock on the door]
"Transport here to take you to x-ray."
At 10:15?! (Oh, right. Hospital time.)
Anyway, best transport yet. Taken to x-ray, transporter waited while I had my procedure, and I was back to my room by 10:45.
Postscript: Just talked with the manager. The target maximum wait time is 2 hours.
and what is the record for the longest wait time (and is Wheelchair Guy still waiting)?
ReplyDeleteSo the moral of the story is dont head off with transport without your cellphone and a good book?
Wow, two hours seems awful long. I agree with you on the stress bit. Not only that, but some folks I imagine are having problems controlling the "products" of their body, and I would think that could make things worse. I don't know about you, but if I had to sit in a wheel chair for two hours, I'd need at least one trip to the toilet.
ReplyDeleteKeep stirring things up, maybe they can cut that target max wait in at least half!
Joe, it sounds like the hospital is a sort of parallel universe. I wonder if hospital protocols that add stress to the patient are actually part of an intentional business strategy: increase stress, thereby increasing hospitalization time, thereby increasing revenue.
ReplyDelete