Piña colada for the patient, please?

credit: Kenny Hindgren

People always ask me about what goes on behind closed doors in hospitals, so today I thought I’d give you a bit of an insiders view into emergency departments.
Just to mix things up a bit, today’s article comes with a twist of lime – I’m turning the tables and commenting on something that is widely known amongst nurses but probably not openly discussed, at least not in public

In my years of nursing I’ve come across a rather interesting phenomenon that many other health care workers have also experienced at some time or other. It really is quite a crazy concept that really defies logic, yet inexplicably it continues to occur in both the public and private sectors.

“What is this crazy phenomenon?”, you ask.

Ok here goes.  And before you start throwing mouldy fruit at me, please understand the spirit of where I am coming from.  Patient’s are great, and nurses are here for the patients.  If we didn’t have some degree of empathy we couldn’t really function at all in the job. Honest!

However……

There are a certain portion of the population that actually seem to declare “Here I am, I’m on holiday!” upon arriving at the hospital.

If you’re picturing scenes of a family of 5 bursting into a hotel foyer with bags-a-plenty in tow, excitedly clutching at tickets and dropping bits and pieces of food as they make their way to the front counter, you’re probably not far off.

Strange but true, I’d love to give you some real life examples to back up my allegations. (Addit: for die hard nurses let me make a differentiation here between this kind of ‘holiday’ patient and another frequent flyer, the ‘dying swan’ patient, who can’t possibly push themselves back up the bed. I’ll save that discussion for another day…)

Anyway, here are some of the “yay, I’m on holiday!” type behavioural patterns I have personally been witness to over the years:

• Many patient’s lie down on a bed and decide thank you very much, I am here to stay! Under no circumstances could they possibly get up off that bed, despite the fact that yes, their headache is feeling much better – and “can I have a bedpan, please?”
• One man (relative of a patient) asked me if he could have some food as his wife was being unloaded off the ambulance trolley!? Say what?
• More pillows, less pillows, more blanket, less blanket, foot rub, hair washed etc etc – quite fine if you’re in hospital with a broken hip after a high speed MVA.  Quite not fine if you are in hospital because you drank too much last night!
• Several people have asked me for a food menu to make their lunch or dinner choices while they’re in the Emergency Department.  The “Emergency Department”.  Not the Emergency A-la-Carte designer luncheon lounge!
• Some people reach an emergency cubicle and begin to unpack – photo’s, blankets, flowers, reading material, portable DVD, games, lollies, can of coke, music – “ahhhh, here I am – does anyone know what time bingo starts?”
• And the pièce de résistance:  Once a girl in her 20’s came into emergency with a fairly minor complaint. From memory, it was some kind of ankle injury that ended up being soft tissue damage.  She was discharged and ready to go home, and my colleague helped her to the toilets prior to departure.  Minutes later a voice calls out from inside the toilets:
  “Can you wipe for me please?”  
  My colleague: “Errr.. who wipes for you at home? Aren’t you about to go home?”  
  Disillusioned patient: “Yes, but don’t nurses like, help out and stuff?”  
  Frustrated nurse: “Errr no, you’re quite capable of wiping your own bot-bot actually”. *sigh*
  As we discussed this incident later, dumbfounded, we wondered if someone was giving tickets out at triage – “one free bottom wipe with each presentation!”

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone?

Oh, and could someone fetch a Piña colada for the patient in cube 9 please?  Don’t forget the little umbrella…..