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Sunday, October 25, 2009

Emergency !


Emergency ! Somebody, please help me!

Pay a visit to any hospital emergency department and you will meet at least one person from every sector of the community. You might be from the upmarket district or just one of the ordinary folks, but in emergency we all have one thing in common: Pain!

I was the victim of a crash that resulted in a broken leg. I was duly shipped by ambulance to the emergency department of Hospital Arnau de Villanova, in Valencia City. Firstly, at the very outset if we are going to talk about emergency care we have to acknowledge the staff. Whether the person who deals with you is of good disposition, or one who got out of bed on the wrong side, we must still give them their due. A typical working day for these people is nothing even remotely close to normal.

So, let’s take our hats off and give a sincere round of appreciation to the staffs, because someone has to do it. How they cope is way beyond my comprehension.

I was wheeled into the lobby at 11:30am, and the ambulance driver went to the reception to check me in. This was the first time that I had been taken by ambulance, and I must say that I was a little bit disappointed. The driver never used the siren even once. It also seems that the Spanish ambulance service is a bit different from what I am accustomed. Generally I expect there to be on board para-medics to give assistance enroute, but here they aregenerally speaking, a transportation service.

Once the driver had checked me in through reception he left. After a short-ish wait my name was called to go to the Sala de Clasficaión, which I took to be Triage. There a quick assessment of my condition was made and I was classified according to the urgency of my situation.

Then I was wheeled back into the hall to wait some more. Again, my name was called to go to the Sala de Ambulatorios where I gave much more detailed information, such as the answer to the question: “Are you allergic to any medicines?” This is a tricky one because you can only say whether you have encountered anything bad. You don’t know what they are going to give you.

Then back out into the hall where in fairly short order my name was called again, this time to go to x-ray. My left foot was photographed and I was sent back out into the hall. The time was one pm. My next port of call would be the doctor in the trauma room. They finally called me in at 5:20pm. This is the problem about big city emergencies. The pressure of so many people needing to be seen is such that waiting times are extraordinarily long. Bear in mind that I am sitting there with a broken leg that has not received any first-aid attention at all. A cold compress to reduce the swelling would have been good.

What does one do when you have five and a half hours to wait? Fortunately for me I had a newspaper with me and I read the bits that I never go anywhere near. Mainly, in a situation like that, a writer will observe and then start to make notes because this was a very rich pageant passing before me indeed.

The waiting area was full when I arrived and there never was an unoccupied seat. As soon as a seat was vacated the next person filled it. Even the bank of wheelchairs had able-bodied people sitting in them which still left people standing.

The Spanish worker loves his coffee break, but unless there’s a well-oiled system of relief there is no way you could get away from your desk, even for a bathroom break.

Two women who stood nearby were having a conversation by signing each other. That left me wondering whether the signs materially change with the language. Then, the mobile phone of one of the ladies rang and she answered it. I assumed that she was someone who could hear and speak normally, and that she was there to help her friend, but to my surprise she flipped the cover and then she started signing the person who appeared on the screen. I thought that was really useful, a modified mobile for the deaf and speech impaired.

If you were accompanying someone you got a green sticky card to paste onto your clothing. I know that it was not intended to resemble the Jewish star that the Jews wore during the dark times of the nazis, but, still I was reminded.

A man came rushing into the area, together with three others. Evidently he was a motor mechanic as his hands were covered in oil. He was holding one hand that had apparently been crushed in an accident. He was put through the same routine that I was, and I thought that his wait was far too long for someone in so much pain. He still hadn’t been seen by the time I went in. I thought he should have been called in before me.

The ambulances continued to roll up and discharge their precious cargoes. With many of their patients they jumped the line and went straight into classification and then directly into the treatment rooms. These people were in serious life-threatening situations and time was of the essence.

There were a couple of very odd situations like the three nurses who, walking together passed up and down the corridor eight times, always in the same configuration. There didn’t appear to be any purpose to their taking a walk. On the eighth time they left the hospital as they had changed into their street clothes.

There was a woman with a green tag that she kept changing from one breast to the other. She never stood still for the whole five hours. There were also two guards standing at the doors to the treatment rooms. I’m sure there is a good reason for that, but they never seemed to actually do anything.

On a more serious side there was all the drama and angst of people who accompanied their loved ones in and hovered over them worryingly, and the most heart-breaking of all were those who came rushing in having been informed someone close had been brought in. They were almost always hysterical. I have had that experience myself.

Finally, when I was called in to see the doctor she informed me that my leg was broken and that I would have to be sent to another hospital to be operated on. I made my choice of hospital and arrived by ambulance at 6pm, only to have to start the process all over again.

You have to laugh, or cry!

Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael