Sunday my elderly mother had a fall and we ended up at a hospital close to her residence in South Surrey. My mum had fallen in the night, fell on her back and had blood in her urine. After a quick trip to a clinic, we were directed to Peace Arch Hospital.
A great staff, but slower the the patients they mainly serve.
After arriving at Emergency we were kindly sent to an area in one of the hallways that had a number of beds ( and patients) using them. A very nice Nurse came along and was very calming for my mother and explained that the doctor would see us as soon as possible. An hour and half later a doctor came by and told my mother she would need a cat-scan to find out if there was any damage to her organs or internal bleeding. After another wait – again a very nice orderly came and took my mother for the scan. The technician (also top-notch and very friendly) took my mother in and took the scan.
We were them sent back to the hallway to wait for the results. What seemed like an eternity was just that and we weren’t the only one’s getting impatient. One man stood up and yelled in frustration, ‘I’m just waiting for a cat-scan and I’ve been here for 4 hours!” and sat down in disgust.
Thing is, at this point my mother an I had waited over 5 hours. When the nurse finally arrived to say the doctor would be along soon, mum complained s little to him. His response, ‘We’re very busy today’ in a very kind manor and left. Soon after the doctor came with the results and she is just fine, save for some bruising.
The doctor wasn’t so lucky.
My mother let him have it with a barrage of, ‘How can you treat a 90 year old like this?’, ‘This is unacceptable.’, ‘BC needs to do better than this!’
I could see by the doctor’s face that this wasn’t the first time a little old lady has given him a verbal lashing. And he handled it by apologizing and saying they were very busy and he did what he could.
And he’s right.
You may have seen the commercials recently from the nurses union. Doctors and Nurses in this province (and country) are pulled wayyyy too thin and the one’s who pay with their time are the patient and their families.
It’s a broken record and you’ve heard it before. And you’ll hear it again because nobody seems to give a damn enough to actually do something about it.
Shame.