Lots of fancy schmancy hospitals here in the DC region – Hopkins, GW – are unhappy with this result, but they’re taking it seriously.
UD, as it happens, had her recent surgery at Holy Cross Hospital.
The place was clean, quiet, and well-run — at least during the day. Genial doctors and nurses trundled in and out of her room checking meds and machines and all.
*******************************************
But things got weird in the wee small hours of the morning. At that point a rather frightened, inept group of nurses took over.
They wouldn’t give me an extra pain pill, though I needed one.
One of them moved in very close to me and said: “Tell me about this mole on your arm. I want to know. Were you born with it? How did it become like this?” She gazed at it as if she thought it had magical powers.
I called the nurses when my IV suddenly beeped and said AIR IN LINE, and when one finally moseyed in she didn’t know how to stop that from happening. She called another nurse in, who muttered, in answer to my question, that yes, well, you don’t want to let that sort of thing go on too long because it can kill you.
When they told me I could finally have a full meal, they neglected to tell me that I had to call a certain number and order it. Eventually I called the number, and the kitchen said they had orders to give me nothing. It took a good deal of work to get the nurses’ desk to tell the kitchen that I could eat.
So evenings at Holy Cross with the night nurses were unpleasant. With daylight, it became an award-winning hospital again.
September 26th, 2011 at 7:24PM
http://blog.preparedpatientforum.org/blog/2011/08/middle-of-the-night-medicine-is-rarely-patient-centred/
September 26th, 2011 at 8:28PM
dmf: Wow. I had no idea. I just read the whole article. Many thanks.
September 27th, 2011 at 9:46AM
glad to be of some help, it’s a tragic state of affairs especially for folks with debilitating chronic illnesses.
jessie gruman is your bloggy equivalent on the patients-advocacy/healthcare-reform front, only online she is a bit less direct/salty.
September 27th, 2011 at 11:53AM
Weekends are bad too.