Today, I want to blog about one of the incidents that happened two weeks ago in our ward. This part of my entry may not be related to my Day 2 of my long vacation leave but it is something that I was thinking about this afternoon. Being on a leave from the hospital doesn't only mean you're free from burnout but also you're free from demanding and stressful patient's relatives. I remember I posted a Facebook status about this:
Two weeks ago, a patient admitted from MS (one of the buildings in our hospital where all the suite rooms are located) transferred to our ward. Our ward has 3 semi-private rooms and 17 big private rooms. So if all rooms are vacated, we have a total of 29 patients compared to MS who only has a maximum of 11 patients because they only have 11 suite rooms per ward. Not only that, they don't get to experience a "full-packed" census. Most of their patients also have their own private duty nurses. So... are you getting my point? The nurses in MS is not as busy as the staff in our ward. I've heard that they sometimes get to have mani-pedi during their working hours or watch movies in their portable DVD player. In tagalog, sobrang swabe ang buhay nila dun. I don't have grudges or ill-feelings towards the staff nurses there. I just find them very, very lucky because they go home as if like they have just come out from the shower unlike us who are tired as fuck and who smells like poop.
So anyway, back to the story... that patient and her family was (or is... if they're still in our ward up to this moment; I have no updates) so demanding. You all know that the old people have a very special place in my heart. But that woman was just different. She sees us like a maid or worse a slave. I've never felt that she gave respect to any of us. During our endorsement, I was assigned to check the endorsing level of the patients' intravenous fluids (or dextrose in layman's term). It was my first time to interact with her... and she told me to stop what I am doing and accompany her to the CR. For your information, our "endorsement period" is very very important because that's the summary of what happened during the outgoing shift. As the incoming shift, it is a must to listen very carefully to every detail of the endorsement. I told her, "Lola, teka lang po kase nageendorsement pa po kame eh... Balikan na lang po kita..." I talked to her in a nice way but she shouted and me and demanded that I accompany her. I told her helper, "Ate, hindi mo po ba kayang samahan?" The helper replied, "Ayaw niya sa akin. Samahan mo na lang..." So I told the patient, "Lola teka... Tatawag ako ng sasama sayo..." And I went outside the room... I heard her shouting at me and saw her pointing her index finger at me when I closed the door.
During the endorsement, we were told that the patient and her family thinks that MS is like same as N5 (our ward). They don't know that every nurse assigned to them handles 20 or more patients in 8 hours. They were informed about it because we noticed their unreasonable demands but despite the orientation, the patient still asked one of our staff nurses to MASSAGE her hands. Like what the fuck. I don't remember seeing in my/our job description that it is our responsibility to massage any patient's body just because they want to. I mean we could do it if it's part of the doctor's orders... But if it's something that's not part of our task, that's just ridiculous.
So that night, something happened. The patient's daughter called our charge nurse on the phone and kept shouting at her. Apparently, the patient CLAIMS that she was left unattended during her nebulization. She also CLAIMS that the nurse assigned to her said, "AY NAKALIMUTAN KO PONG PATAYIN YUN NEBULIZER." For the record, even if we actually forget one or two of our tasks because of loads of work, we will never ever tell our patient, "Nakalimutan ko po..." We know how to answer even if we're sometimes wrong. Hehe. Our charge nurse said, "Babalikan naman po nung assigned sa kanya na nurse. Nagkataon lang po na nasa kabilang pasyente pa po siya..." And the patient's daughter replied, "KUNG DI NIYO KAYA YUN TRABAHO NIYO, WAG NIYONG AKUHIN! I want every nurse on duty tonight be sanctioned for this incident!"
Whoaaaa. Miss, do you actually know what you're saying?! When we heard that, we didn't know how to react. Should we laugh about it or get mad? It was kind of insulting actually. We don't choose patients to handle. Whoever is assigned to us, whoever we admit... we have no choice but to take good care of them. We aren't even related to any of our patients but we provide care for them even if sometimes it's against our will. We make sure that they are always provided a comfortable and safe environment. We skip meals because of our patients. We sometimes forget that we have our own urinary bladder because we need to attend to their own needs. And yet, this is what we get from them. We don't expect any of our patients to appreciate us. We don't require them to give us a token of appreciation everytime we go in and out of their room. We just want to be respected like any other human being should get. We didn't study for 4 years to be belittled by anyone.
This is sometimes the reason why I hate this job. I like providing care for my patients because it's fulfilling but being treated that way is soooo out of the story. Someday, they'll realize what they have done to us.
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