Hospitals today are not only pushing patients out the door
as soon as they can; they’re also cramming in the patients they do keep.
My octogenarian father checked himself into Albert Einstein
Hospital in the Bronx on Sunday. He was
coughing up blood. It wasn’t panic time
because he gets lung infections every now and then. However, this time the coughed-up blood was
more copious than usual, so my father and mother trekked to Einstein’s
emergency room.
The examining doctor pronounced there was nothing to worry
about. The treatment would amount to four
or so days of antibiotics. The doctor ordered
a precautionary X-ray, and decided that my dad should at least stay overnight
for bed rest and observation. My father
agreed. Everybody agreed.
In short order, my father found himself in the typical open-in-the-back
hospital gown, fastened to an IV drip bag, and tucked into a bed in the
emergency room holding area. The doctor
explained that dad would be rolled up to a room as soon as one became
available. The emergency room is not a
good place to hang out, the doctor pointed out; too many sick people.
By early evening, there still was no room for dad. My mother, also an octogenarian, was tired, and
took a taxi home. I wouldn’t be on the
scene until the following day. After it
became apparent no room would be available, my father, his IV bag, and the bed
he was in were rolled onto an elevator and up to the ninth floor where he would
spend the night.
Now here’s the
stupid part. There was no room
for him. So my father found himself in
the rolling hospital bed along the wall of a busy hospital hallway. When night came, as worn-out as he was, my
father found it impossible to sleep.
Staff regularly moved up and down the corridor with clipboards and/or
wheeling medication-laden carts; the overhead lights were in his eyes; and the
personnel at the nurses’ station gabbed aloud incessantly. This is where he was supposed to be observed
and rest? The next day, I drove my exhausted father
home.
On just about every visit I’ve made to a hospital, as a
patient or visitor, I’ve seen patients in beds in corridors. Sad, yes, but until this past weekend it wasn’t
personal. Hospitals are being closed
left and right, supposedly for efficiency and economy, and we’re left with patients
sleeping in passageways? Economical,
maybe, but where’s the efficiency in that?
But, maybe more importantly, where’s the caring and compassion? What I see is indifference and, for the
patient, humiliation.
