Acopia
One thing that gets me about many presentations to hospitals is that they involved the dreaded ‘acopia’
Not sure what acopia means? From Wiki: “Acopia means “inability to cope” and is often used as a euphemistic medical term which is used to denote psychosocial inability to function in a person’s usual home environment”.
The problem is, a lot of these types of presentations end up taking up a bed in the emergency department which is RIDICULOUS! Picture old Bob Jones taking up an emergency bed just because he’s becoming more unsteady on his feet! It happens all the time…
Many of the ‘acopic’ type presentations are instigated by family members and often involve situations like:
- the person is too old and frail to look after themselves any more
- the home environment is not safe for the patient, eg need rails in the bathroom
- the person is becoming more confused than they have been previously
- the person does not have any assisting services in place, like meals / cleaning etc.
- the family are going away for the holidays and don’t have anyone to look after dad
While these are all valid concerns, they ARE NOT EMERGENCIES!! QUICK! Call an ambulance! Grandpa can’t reach the remote!
Last week at triage a man dumped his mother in the waiting room because “I’m afraid she might trip over and hurt herself”. <insert stunned disbelief here!>
Needless to say, there are many avenues you can take if you are in a situation like this BEFORE you dump someone in an emergency department.
