Thursday, September 9, 2010

The Hospital Stay, Briefly

Generally the hospital stay was the necessary experience that you would expect.  It started out fine, Friday night after the surgery, with competent, nice, nurses who took good care of me.  When I started to see the nurse's aides on the day shifts is when I got nervous and worried.  These were people who seemed underqualified to say "do you want fries with that?"  It culminated in the last nurse I had on Sunday being downright scary.  She didn't seem to have confidence in what she was doing, so how were we to be confident in her?  She didn't even know how to operate the bed I was in.  But mostly she pissed me off when she gave me the wrong meds on Sunday afternoon.  I hadn't noticed at the time, but it sure explains why I got so drowsy!  We wound up voicing our displeasure to anyone who would listen, and had a talk with the head nurse about her before I was discharged.  We couldn't get me out of there fast enough that day. 

I've had the misfortune to be hospitalized a couple times in my life, and the quality of care has gone down each time.  I guess this is just a reflection of the times we live in, unfortunately.

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