If you
were a patient in a ward have you ever thought how does this special medicine
get delivered to me at 3 am in the morning? Who helps feed the old uncle who
cannot even hold a spoon? Does the doctor treating me really want to help me
and cure me? Here are some real life short stories written from 15 years of
working experience as a health care profession that may change your
perceptions.
Sounds
of coughing came from the isolation room where a very ill young boy with blood
disorder was residing. At midnight, the night shift staff nurse scurried into
the room with bundle of cloths. The floor of the room was covered with blood
the young boy had coughed out from his lungs, the nurse laid all the cloths on
the floor. As his family members watched on, quickly the cloths became blood
stained, but the blood red was thankfully camouflaged by the dark green colour
of the cloths. Tears raced down the nurse’s face as she went in and out of the
room with fresh bundle of cloths. In between trips, she tried her best to
console the then inconsolable family. And this went on for most of the night.
By morning the young boy had passed on. While the night shift nurse was
clocking out of her shift she was both very sad and also thankful for the young
boy who did not have to suffer any longer. She hopes the family will also find
acceptance and peace.
It was
9 pm at night, the phone belonging to a hospital pharmacist rang. On the line
was a medical officer explaining a case of a critically ill patient in the ward
that requires a particular fungal therapy urgently. The pharmacist makes
immediate arrangements to allow for supply of the medicine to the ward that
very night. However come next morning, the patient collapsed in the midst of
infusing the medication. The medical officer performed emergency CPR on the
patient for close to 2 hours, but was unable to resuscitate the patient. After
the patient had pass-on, the pharmacist found the medical officer weeping
outside the patient’s room. The pharmacist consoled the medical officer that he
had done his very best for the patient, not everything was within his control.
The doctor called the pharmacist-on call at half pass midnight and requested for supply of a particular immunoglobulin therapy that was not available in the hospital for a child that was in the paediatric ward. The pharmacist made some calls around and located the drug in another hospital in the city that was willing to put the medicine on loan at this late hour. The next day which was a weekend, the pharmacist who was also heavily pregnant returned to the office to complete documentations and seek approval from supervisors to loan the medication. She then readied herself to drive to the hospital to loan the medication. The pharmacist felt very alone facing this, as she was almost due to deliver and without support from family as she was living on her own with her husband working outstation. But she accepted this with an open heart that this was part of working life in a hospital.
These
little miracle-like workers are like santas’ elves working around the clock to
run this well-oiled machinery we call our public health system. Sure there are
some rusts and glitches to this ‘’machinery” but we should not forget the
humanity, humility and attitudes of servitude behind it. These here are just a
handful of the countless stories of the unsung heroes from all health care
professions that work seamlessly behind the screen day-in day-out to serve the
public, the patients. As a person who has been on both sides of the service
partisan, I remind myself of this each time a nurse smiles at me, or a pharmacy
technicians checks the medicine stocks for me or when a doctor examines me.
These health care staff are not just faceless persons serving me, but persons
with emotions and may have even
anonymously sacrificed much for you/me in their line of duty.
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