Recently out of four weeks fighting a stubborn, systemic infection threatening to shut down my ability to carry on as a functioning adult, one of those weeks was spent in a local hospital.
I learned, through observation and questioning, a few things that the health administration in this province might wish to take into consideration.
First of all, the system is broken and needs fixing, immediately. Our BC Ministry of Health ought to be out front in leading society to a place of wellness and wellbeing. It isn’t. I learned that hospitals do not recycle anything, which is absolutely irresponsible and preposterous in this day and age. The excuse seems to be that contamination might somehow occur. Balderdash!
Secondly, our nurses are not underpaid. They are, however, grossly overworked. The average nurse in the execution of his/her duties in a 12-hour shift walks or runs approximately 16 kilometres or 10 miles, if you prefer. No, I am not kidding. Research has been done with pedometers and a nurse can execute 16,000 steps or more in a shift and that, folks, equates, at a metre a step, to 16-k.
The care these nursing practitioners provide is superb and “seldom is heard a discouraging word.” However, when you ask for something or are due for a medication or treatment and your attending nurse runs from your room saying, “I’ll be right back,” and you don’t see her/him for quite a spell, you can bet that she/he has been drawn in several directions of priority, all superseding yours. And each nurse is responsible for four or five patients plus assisting other nurses with their wards.
OK now, how about waste, and I don’t mean garbage. Senior management salaries are out of sight and, in my opinion, totally unwarranted.
Any program or initiative which does not directly impact patient care and improvement ought to be scrapped.
Edgar Murdoch