My friend could lose her eye thanks to public health.
I work out of a public hospital. I see public health employees every day. I like to joke about how every time I walk past a nurse (which is quite often) I don't really see a person; I see a cartoon – a rotund woman with sausages for fingers and honeyed hams for ankles, walking – no, waddling – as slow as humanly possible, dropping their full body weight from one side to the other and stopping every 10 feet to gossip with another, approaching waddler. This is funny, hilarious even, until you imagine this cartoon caring for someone who needs immediate assistance. Or when you imagine an entire hospital staffed by cartoon nurses who spend more time in the tea room than on the wards.
Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. Not everyone at Edendale is like this. A handful of public health employees do great work and are dedicated to delivering good care (at least that's what the iTEACH Warriors report). But I have not met any of them. All I have encountered is apathy, greed and spite.
Last month, my friend Gugu was admitted for a cornea transplant. Initially, it seemed to have gone well, then her body began to reject the implant. After a scary amount of steroids, way too many nights in the eye ward and a new set of stitches, her immune system finally stopped fighting the foreign body, and she was discharged from the hospital. It's worth mentioning that inpatients with a severely suppressed immune system are at serious risk of acquiring a nasty illness, and at the biggest public hospital in KwaZulu Natal, that illness would likely be tuberculosis.
This week, Gugu has been back to the hospital twice with severe headaches. Today the headache was accompanied by, if not the result of, a stitch from the operation that had come undone. When I found Gugu in the clinic, her left eye was swollen shut and she was shaking in pain. It was all I could do not to pick her up, throw her in my car and take her to a private hospital. I gently encouraged her to consider seeing a different doctor, but the only thing she could think of was being admitted (anywhere) ASAP so she could be treated for the pain.
I walked her to the eye ward where after the nurses were done reading their text messages (all four of them), they lazily pointed Gugu out of the ward and towards Admissions. In Admissions we waited on line for about 30 minutes. Gugu sat shaking in a chair while I paced back and forth like a maniac, cursing every sausage fingered nurse killing time a tea room. When she finally received admission papers, we went back to the eye ward. This time, we were greeted by an empty desk. Awesome. A nurse came to the front and took Gugu's file. She was thin and moved with some quickness. I considered this a good sign.
I stayed with Gugu while she waited for a bed. We looked on helplessly as the nurses slowly unfolded blankets, taking breaks to answer their cell phones. It was excruciating. I was seconds away from taking the blankets and making the damn bed myself. While this was taking place, the thin nurse came back and took Gugu into another room to dose her with pain medication. Finally.
I didn't leave until Gugu was in bed and booked for surgery. There was nothing else I could do. We joked about a gourmet meal that would be served at 5pm and an advanced screening of Skyfall that would be shown to exclusively to the eye ward patients later that evening, but it didn't make her situation any less sad, scary or frustrating. I was furious. I wanted to climb up onto the reception desk and scream – WHY DON'T ANY OF YOU GIVE A SHIT! And – WHY THE FUCK DID HER STITCHES COME OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE. But I'm not one for drama, and I didn't want Gugu to see security drag me off the premises. So I stalked back to my office and wrote this.
It is my job to help improve patient care in the public sector. I can create products and systems that support patients and those who care for them, but I can't make beds or stitch corneas for them. I hope I don't feel this helpless in the morning.
I work out of a public hospital. I see public health employees every day. I like to joke about how every time I walk past a nurse (which is quite often) I don't really see a person; I see a cartoon – a rotund woman with sausages for fingers and honeyed hams for ankles, walking – no, waddling – as slow as humanly possible, dropping their full body weight from one side to the other and stopping every 10 feet to gossip with another, approaching waddler. This is funny, hilarious even, until you imagine this cartoon caring for someone who needs immediate assistance. Or when you imagine an entire hospital staffed by cartoon nurses who spend more time in the tea room than on the wards.
Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. Not everyone at Edendale is like this. A handful of public health employees do great work and are dedicated to delivering good care (at least that's what the iTEACH Warriors report). But I have not met any of them. All I have encountered is apathy, greed and spite.
Last month, my friend Gugu was admitted for a cornea transplant. Initially, it seemed to have gone well, then her body began to reject the implant. After a scary amount of steroids, way too many nights in the eye ward and a new set of stitches, her immune system finally stopped fighting the foreign body, and she was discharged from the hospital. It's worth mentioning that inpatients with a severely suppressed immune system are at serious risk of acquiring a nasty illness, and at the biggest public hospital in KwaZulu Natal, that illness would likely be tuberculosis.
This week, Gugu has been back to the hospital twice with severe headaches. Today the headache was accompanied by, if not the result of, a stitch from the operation that had come undone. When I found Gugu in the clinic, her left eye was swollen shut and she was shaking in pain. It was all I could do not to pick her up, throw her in my car and take her to a private hospital. I gently encouraged her to consider seeing a different doctor, but the only thing she could think of was being admitted (anywhere) ASAP so she could be treated for the pain.
I walked her to the eye ward where after the nurses were done reading their text messages (all four of them), they lazily pointed Gugu out of the ward and towards Admissions. In Admissions we waited on line for about 30 minutes. Gugu sat shaking in a chair while I paced back and forth like a maniac, cursing every sausage fingered nurse killing time a tea room. When she finally received admission papers, we went back to the eye ward. This time, we were greeted by an empty desk. Awesome. A nurse came to the front and took Gugu's file. She was thin and moved with some quickness. I considered this a good sign.
I stayed with Gugu while she waited for a bed. We looked on helplessly as the nurses slowly unfolded blankets, taking breaks to answer their cell phones. It was excruciating. I was seconds away from taking the blankets and making the damn bed myself. While this was taking place, the thin nurse came back and took Gugu into another room to dose her with pain medication. Finally.
I didn't leave until Gugu was in bed and booked for surgery. There was nothing else I could do. We joked about a gourmet meal that would be served at 5pm and an advanced screening of Skyfall that would be shown to exclusively to the eye ward patients later that evening, but it didn't make her situation any less sad, scary or frustrating. I was furious. I wanted to climb up onto the reception desk and scream – WHY DON'T ANY OF YOU GIVE A SHIT! And – WHY THE FUCK DID HER STITCHES COME OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE. But I'm not one for drama, and I didn't want Gugu to see security drag me off the premises. So I stalked back to my office and wrote this.
It is my job to help improve patient care in the public sector. I can create products and systems that support patients and those who care for them, but I can't make beds or stitch corneas for them. I hope I don't feel this helpless in the morning.
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