Westserve

Chronic Illness and the health system

We had occasion this week to be ‘customers’ of the public health system – again. Actually, it’s been a while since we’ve been inpatients of a public hospital, and while some things are just the same, some things have changed.

Some background: My wife was the patient (no surprise!) and the visit was linked to the ongoing treatment of her various chronic conditions. Hospital stays for Rob, no matter how short or simple, are exhausting and traumatic physically. No small contributor to this is the unwillingness of many, many doctors to really listen to patients. So someone who’s symptoms/conditions don’t fit a textbook description gets badly short-changed by many health professionals. We’ve suffered this for years. Many of Rob’s symptoms and conditions are plainly evident, but do not always fit the ‘standard’ picture. So doctors start looking sideways at you and mumbling quietly about depression and other non-physical causes. That sometimes is valid, but isn’t in our case, and we get very tired at the inability of so many think even slightly outside the square.

So when one specialist said back in March that a hospital stay would be required to try and get a handle on one particular issue, it was with a degree of fear and trepidation.
We soon discovered a bed was going to be weeks/months away, and even getting a ‘bed nearly ready’ phone call ten days ago was only a precursor to days of checking.
But this week, our number came up and we duly arrived at Royal North Shore at 2pm on Wednesday. Five hours later she finally had a bed!
My first reaction to revisiting the corridors of the RNSH Main Building was slightly sad. All our children were born at this hospital, my father-in-law had many stays there, and finally died there. Rob has had serious surgery there, and so on. But it looked really… well, really shabby.
A bit like most of our public schools. A clear lack of funds means the niceties (like paint on the walls) are ignored. Rob’s bed on the eighth floor, had a fantastic view of the Harbour Bridge, city skyline, Anzac Bridge, etc. But you barely see it through the thick caked on grime on the windows. These weren’t just dirty windows. You could grow crops on them if they were horizontal! And that typifies the whole situation.
The ward was packed. Twice Rob had to stay in the treatment room so that patients could be shuffled around. Each time, beds and surrounds had to be thoroughly disinfected as part of infection control, but no bed was vacant for more than an hour.

The nursing and ancillary staff were run off their feet, and had to deal with broken equipment, insufficient room (one computer terminal was located in a cleaning cupboard!), and generally sub-standard conditions but to their great credit, they were all helpful, polite, good humoured, and had a desire to serve.

In addition, a Dietician and Occupational Therapist who were asked to consult with us at short notice were terrific. The dietician had obviously thoroughly read Rob’s (very lengthy) medical notes, and the O.T. went out of his way to supply information and loan equipment. Very impressive, and very helpful.

So the infrastructure was largely the same – just more run down. But the people we interacted with were better. Clearly a shift in the thinking and training of health care professionals has taken place. And if our experience is anything to go by, greatly for the better.

So why isn’t the system supporting and resourcing these workers properly? The responsibility falls squarely at the feet of politicians who have failed to provide funding to maintain the system. And us, the electorate, who keep electing the twits into power!

But we are grateful to God for the people He provide to care for Rob, and hope and pray that they are still around for the next visit.