Taking some responsibility for our health issues
As any emergency nurse will tell you, sometimes it’s really difficult not to be judgmental of emergency presentations, particularly if they are self inflicted.
For example, some of the more infuriating presentations include:
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The long term smoker with chronic smoking related problems who continues to smoke heavily, and once again ends up on bipap in the middle of the night
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The pancreatitis patient who drinks heavily then presents screaming in pain
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The insanely obese patient with any number of obesity related issues who presents looking for a magic cure (note – once this patient is on a bed, they typically become completely dependent on nurses for everything, and can’t possibly exert the energy required to get off the bed for anything, especially for such mundane tasks as using the toilet)
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Drunks, alcohol related injuries or any presentation that begins with “I was completely off my face when…”
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People with chronic pain issues who have either gone through their fortnightly allocation of analgesics in one week and are looking for more, or have some shady story about not being able to get a script filled so need some opioid-based pain-killers in the middle of the night (happens more frequently than you would think!)
These sentiments are shared in a recent post I read at ER Nursey titled This is why we are failing, but it got me thinking about why these presentations are so annoying. I think its more than just the fact that in many circumstances the presentations could have been avoided with a bit of foresight, self-control and good health practices.
One of the things I recognise is that we live in a very self-centered world. People who present with such complaints are not only hogging precious hospital resources (staff, time, expenses, A BED), but often they seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that THEY are causing their own problems.
To make things worse, many of these people frequently present not only with self inflicted injuries or complaints, but have some attitude to go with it:
“what are you gonna do to help me?” Almost a “fix this up, it’s your job” mentality. “Get me better”.
I wouldn’t make such a harsh claim if I had not seen it with my own eyes over and over and over again.
And so nurses try and maintain some degree of compassion, empathy – certainly there are a huge percentage of patients who deserve it. This other group of patients however sure make it difficult sometimes.
Surely sooner or later, for the good of ourselves, our resources and our fellow man, we as a society have to take some responsibility for our own health issues.
