Fawlty Towers, tonsilitis and suicide
This will be a rather eclectic posting.
Firstly, Strathfield Private Hospital is a hole and the standard of care there is horrible. Well, let me qualify that by saying relative to North Shore Private; relative to Italian hospitals I have visited or stayed in in Bologna, Cortona, Fratta, Castiglione Fiorentino, Strathfield Private is a palace. I guess the reason for this harsh judgement of SPH has more to do with the fact that half of the nursing staff are temporary contracted workers and seem inept (compared to the permanent staff) and the procedures in place mean that they don’t check on you nearly as often as NSP. It’s more of a problem with their systems rather than the individuals who were, for the most part, quite lovely, caring people.
I have to say I was starting to feel like I’d landed on the set of Fawlty Towers. One nurse, who always seemed to have a look of panic on her face (but maybe that’s just how she looked), came to reset the machine maintaining the IV fluid line, punched every button on the machine and set the alarm off. She couldn’t get it to stop so she switched the machine off. Switched it back on and set the alarm off again. Hastily switched it off and rushed out to find someone who knew how to make it work.
The surgeon was a treat. Having been told he likes to call next of kin after surgery, I patiently waited for his call. Nothing. I visited the patient that afternoon and he hadn’t seen the doctor either. Next morning, still nothing. Scans were ordered (that’s a whole other story), the results weren’t wonderful. Still no doctor. A fuss was made and eventually the doctor deigns to come for a post-op consult around dinner time. In his suit, beetling over the patient at the foot of the bed (all the things we’re taught not to do), he looked dismissive and spoke with a similar tone. I’d already told our patient to make sure he was dressed and sitting to even up the power balance a little. “Everything went well, spoke to the radiologist, everything looks fine, you’re being silly, give it a few days”, blah, blah, blah. Bollocks, as the Brits say. Had the doctor even looked at the scan? Hell, no. His excuse? Oh, the DVD never works on his computer. But he’d spoken to the radiologist who assured him all was well. We wonder which radiologist he’d spoken too and regarding which patient.
Next morning, a phone call and an apology. Ah, yes, well, he’d now seen the scan and agrees the results were less than ideal. And doctors wonder why they get complaints brought up against them. Really and truly.
The scan story is also precious. Having been told by the same nurse of the IV line alarms that she would take our patient to Radiology, he staggers out of bed and totters down the hall after the nurse. She proceeds to steam down the hall at a brisk pace some 20 feet ahead. What was she planning to do if he fell over? At some point she realises he’s not keeping pace and turns and looks at him in puzzlement. Anyway, they get there in the end and she tells him she’ll come back to get him when the scans are done. The radiologist dithers with the machine and finds it’s not working. The technician tells her it’s because she needs to put film in it even if they’re putting it on DVD. Radiologist nods and continues fiddling for a few minutes and says it’s still not working. Tech tells her it’s because there’s still no film in the machine. Ah, the radiologist says. Good grief. So contrast is swallowed and DVDs are made. Upon viewing the scans, she says well, that didn’t work, did it? Puts her hand on the patients knee and says, I’m sorry about that. Then she decides she needs a film of the scan so more contrast is swallowed, the film is not much good and says, well the DVD will do. So much for minimising radiation exposure.
The patient, now allowed to return to his room, turns to leave. He’s told to wait for the nurse but says, don’t bother, I made it down here by myself, I think I can make it back. Said nurse finds him in bed half an hour later and exclaims, you’re back! They didn’t call me!
Enough about hospitals, let me tell you about the morgue.
‘Tis the season for suicide apparently. With the world financial market crashing, lots of people in finance are choosing to jump off things. We got asked what mode we’d choose if we were to commit suicide. I said drugs. Our noble leader said he’d jump which, given how many autopsies on jumpers he’d done, I found surprising. Mangled bodies and organs. Certainly can’t have an open casket. His location of preference was also used by one of the deceased being autopsied that day. We were told that orthopaedic consultants reckon 7 storeys is the magic number (approx 15m). So that height or higher and you’re toast. Rope is supposed to be quite effective too. Of course, guns work, but they’re hard to get hold of.
Apparently, doctors are very good at commiting suicide - I would have thought it stands to reason that having some knowledge of drugs, physiology and anatomy would be useful. The preferred method for doctors is apparently IV drug overdose combined with drowning in the bath. Registrars are allegedly the peak performers. I’ve told the kitties they have to be on suicide watch when I get to that stage.
I hope no-one gets any dumb ideas from reading this. If anything, my time at the morgue yesterday reinforced what a waste suicide is. If those jumpers had just waited a day, they would have seen interest rates go down by 100 basis points. That surely would have made a big difference to the mortgage repayments. And the way to cope with doing forensice pathology for a living is to depersonalise the victims and make a lot of tasteless jokes. Makes suicide meaningless really. The ones that die tragic deaths get a little more reverence at least. It’s also a lot of paperwork and mess for police and forensic pathologists. Not to mention that not all insurance policies will pay (check the fine print!) so loved ones may miss out if the point was to bail them out of financial difficulties. So stupid.
And finally, I have succumbed. I’ve spent the year fighting it. Had colds on and off and just thought I was run down, stressed or both. I went to the doctor. I have tonsilitis. I’m too old for bloody tonsilitis! Grr. I feel disgusting. At least I’m not a med school hypochondriac. A dose of penicillin and I should be better. I suppose I should be thankful it’s during the holidays except I’ve been feeling off for months and felt crappy for ages. Well, fingers crossed this set of antibiotics knocks it out permanently and I get back to my A-game.
