Recently out of four weeks fighting a stubborn, systemic infection threatening to shut down my ability to carry on as a functioning adult, one of those weeks was spent in the local hospital.
I learned, through observation and questioning, a few things that the health administration in this province might wish to take into consideration.
First of all, the system is broken and needs fixing, immediately. Our BC Ministry of Health ought to be out front in leading society to a place of wellness and wellbeing. It isn’t. I learned that hospitals do not recycle anything for whatever reason, which is absolutely irresponsible and preposterous in this day and age. The excuse seems to be that contamination might somehow occur. Balderdash!
Secondly, our nurses are not underpaid. They are however, grossly overworked. The average nurse in the execution of his/her duties in a 12-hour shift walks or runs approximately 16 kilometres or 10 miles, if you prefer. No, I am not kidding. Research has been done with pedometers and a nurse can execute 16,000 steps or more in a shift and that folks equates, at a metre a step, to 16 km.
The care these nursing practitioners provide is superb and “seldom is heard a discouraging word.” However, when you ask for something or are due for a medication or treatment and your attending nurse runs from your room saying, “I’ll be right back,” and you don’t see her/him for quite a spell, you can bet your ‘sweet bippy’ that she/he has been drawn in several directions of priority, all superseding yours. And each nurse is responsible for four or five patients plus assisting other nurses with their wards. So think about it.
And they simply do everything. They bring you meds, supply you with water or juice, serve your meal trays, help you up or down, walk with you for support, bathe you or accompany you to the shower room and wash your hair and help you get squeaky once again. They take your vitals and keep copious records of every little thing pertaining to your condition….You may add your own litany to this list of actions nurses take to get you home where you want to be and ought to be.
Okay now, how about waste, and I don’t mean garbage. Senior management salaries are out of sight and in my opinion totally unwarranted. If a healthy society is the goal, then removing a zero from an executive’s stipend ought to be considered. Any program or initiative which does not directly impact patient care and improvement ought to be scrapped.
Even the hint that a procedure has been introduced to benefit only the corporation promoting it should not be allowed. I’m thinking of the lab assistants who collect blood samples by wrapping a rubber strap painfully around your bicep before ‘the little poke’. They have been instructed to toss each strap after each use. If the hospital gown covered the bicep area and the strap was tied over the material it would effectively reduce the discomfort and more importantly prevent the strap from touching the skin and becoming contaminated, which is the alleged groundless fear, I hear. I saved my rubber strap and insisted it be used instead of a fresh one every time. I wonder how much this step alone would save the administration to be put toward nurses’ wages?
And remember when, in the old days, you received your meds in a little paper cup and the nurse went over each one with you to make sure that the right pill and the correct dose was being administered? Well, apparently that wasn’t good enough, because now each individual pill is placed in a blister pack with label to avoid mistakes. And the cost of all this pill packaging?
Alberta Health Services recently laid off 200 nurses as a “technical requirement of transferring Registered Nurses to areas where they’re most needed.” Excuse me, what is that supposed to mean? They’re needed everywhere for Pete’s sake. The ‘disease’ is endemic folks, and requires immediate treatment to achieve a healthy environment for all participants.
Edgar Murdoch
Enderby
