Ugly

When a friend of mine recently heard the radio news story about the failure to rescue a dying heart attack patient on the doorstep of a public hospital, he almost drove off the road.

Over the last two days, much has been written about the moral of this tragedy in the newspaper editorials and by the bloggers. I believe, however, that this is one of those evergreen bits of wisdom that we can never quite get enough of it.

Still, I dare not tell my friend another story because he would be stupefied to learn that my story occurred exactly at the same hospital. The drama began when a patient, who had undergone an outpatient gynaecology procedure at a day surgery centre, developed bleeding after the minor operation. The doctor, with the help of another nurse, rushed the patient on a stretcher to the acute hospital ward, just within a stone's throw.

Picture the doctor and nurse, both relieved to get the bleeding under control after hospitalization, only to find themselves being bombarded with a barrage of questions from the head nurse.

"For heaven's sake, why? Why don't you dial 999 and call the ambulance?"

The doctor's face fell, and she groaned, "Oh, dear, it would have taken the ambulancemen nearly half an hour to get our patient to the ward."

"And that wasn't exactly the point. You guys knew it, transport of patient on your own is forbidden. And silly! Who is to bear the liability if our patient had problem on the way, say, inside the elevator?"

The doctor wasn't sure she'd heard her correctly and looked slightly flummoxed. "Um… I don't quite understand… well, let me put it this way." She hesitated for a moment, considering her choice of words carefully in front of a head nurse. "What if, I mean, the patient had problem inside the elevator, even in the presence of ambulancemen?"

"That would be the problem of the ambulancemen, then. Not mine!"

Are we letting our ugly side define us more and more as a bureaucratized hospital? Surely, there are many more examples, but I must stop here. To say more would either get me in trouble or falsify my argument.