The Corridor

(Image Courtsey of iStock Photo)

For several years now I’ve heard the horror stories of the Irish medical system. The news is awash with tales of woe. The system, it is claimed is overburdened and underfunded, and the brunt of this is bore by Accident and Emergency (What in the US is referred to as the ER). It’s one of those things though you hear about but don’t pay too much attention to. It’s like when you see a disaster on the news happening in some foreign country. You feel bad for the people involved but you don’t really connect on a personal level. Until of course, it happens to you. Earlier this week I had the misfortune to experience the nightmare the Irish hospital system has become, and I can tell you now, it’s as bad as you’ve heard.

On Tuesday I went to my GP with a recurring pain that I had been having in my back. It was pretty bad, but not excruciating. I expected to be given some painkillers and sent on my way. Instead, after some examination my doctor felt that I probably had kidney stones and I should go get it checked out straight away. So he referred me to the nearest hospital’s accident and emergency department. I was a little shocked. The pain was bad, but I didn’t think it was that bad. I had heard about the long delays experienced by people going to A&E and thought that going to one of the many private clinics which can do the scans I needed would be a better option, but my doctor insisted, and I guess he had my best interests at heart.

I arrived at the hospital a little apprehensive and registered. Shortly after I was called to the triage station where they took my history, measured my blood pressure and examined the referral letter that my doctor had given them. So far so good I thought. I had been seen by the nurse straight away and there wasn’t that much of a crowd outside in the waiting area so I thought that I’d probably be seen to pretty quickly. Boy was I wrong. I arrived at the hospital at 10.30 in the morning. Just remember that fact for later. After seeing the triage nurse I went back to the waiting area and waited … and waited … and waited. It was 4 hours before I was called again. This time by another nurse who took my blood to do blood tests “to speed things along”. Once again I was sent back to the waiting room.

While this was going on I couldn’t help but be dismayed by some of the things I saw going on around me. The ambulance brought in this old woman on a chair, unceremoniously dumped her on one of the waiting room chairs and then left. Another man came in by ambulance who had obviously had some sort of serious accident. His arm was in a splint and bandaged up and he looked like he was in a lot of pain. It was probably about twenty minutes before he was seen by the triage nurse, although they did take him straight through. The most heart wrenching thing I saw though was when this youngish woman who had been waiting for word of what I presume was her mother, was when they finally brought the older woman out to see her. Because of “infection control” they weren’t allowing family members to stay with patients once they were brought through to the treatment area, so the woman had been unable to see her daughter. When they brought her out to the waiting room, in front of everyone she broke down and wept bitterly. It was one of the most upsetting thing I have ever seen, to see someone loose their humanity like that. I still choke up thinking about it. They let the two talk for a few minutes before taking the older woman back inside alone.

Eventually I was called by the doctor. I don’t know how long it had been because I had lost all track of time. Incidentally the pain had pretty much subsided at this point. The doctor (who was very nice to me I should add) asked me all the questions I had already answered twice already (to the triage nurse and the nurse who had took my bloods) and then disappeared to refer to her colleague. She reappeared and said that it probably was kidney stones and that they’d send me for a scan to check. I was then brought through to the mysterious inner sanctum of the A&E department to where people had been disappearing all day. They put me on a trolley and then wheeled me into a corridor outside the main emergency area. There I joined a flotilla of other trolleys which were also lined up in the hall. I immediately recognised some of the faces from earlier in the waiting room. In particular the guy who had been brought in with the arm injury. His arm was now in a sling and he was getting anxious because apparently he had been told hours ago that he needed a cast and would then be discharged, but hadn’t seen anyone since. The friendly doctor who had seen me earlier came back to me and said that they’d ordered the scan and proceeded to put a shunt in my arm (which hut like hell) so that they could give me some i.v. painkillers for the pain I no longer had. She informed me too that she was finishing her shift and I’d be seen by a different doctor. Shortly thereafter I was taken to the far side of the hospital to get a CT scan (which the nerd in me was fascinated by) and then I was returned to the corridor.

It was about 5pm at this stage. I was thirsty and had a splitting headache. Luckily I had brought some water in with me. Others were not so lucky. This old woman behind me somewhere in the corridor kept pleading with the nurses to at the very least give her a cup of tea. They refused. Apparently they were too busy. They suggested that when she got out she write a letter of complaint to the hospital administration. Only my partner had insisted I eat something at midday before I went through from the waiting room I wouldn’t have had anything to eat or drink all day, but there were people there in the corridor who had been there since that morning and hadn’t been given anything. One man had managed to have some friends smuggle a burger king meal in.

My condition wasn’t too bad at this stage but I really felt for those that were very sick and left in this god forsaken corridor. Many were older people and because of the stupid “infection control” restrictions were left completely alone. There were even signs up saying not to use your cell phone. Screw that. What’s worse is that the corridor was fairly busy with nurses, doctors and orderlies coming and going to the main emergency ward, but none of them would talk to you, or even look you in the eye. In fact throughout my whole time there the only person that walked by that even acknowledged my existence was the student nurse that had assisted the triage nurse when I first came to the hospital.

At some point this man was wheeled in to the corridor on a trolley and put opposite me. He was lying very straight and on his back and I found out shortly thereafter that he had fallen and had a crushed vertebra. The man was in severe pain. He had been promised painkillers by the doctor treating him in the emergency ward but hadn’t seen anyone since. Somehow a relative had managed to get into the treatment area with him and grabbed hold of a nurse and demanded to give him something. She went off and got approval from a doctor to give him some pain killers. Only the relative had managed to get back behind the iron treatment curtain, that poor man would have been left in agony alone in the corridor which had seemed like the extent of our world at this stage. She was quickly whisked away and he was left alone. Even after the painkillers though he was still in severe pain. Every few minutes I could hear him wince and groan. Eventually he was wheeled off for a scan and that’s the last I saw of him.

After about 8pm things began to get a little quieter in the corridor. I think some of the people behind me had been either released or wheeled away. It reminded me of that scene towards the end of “Titanic”. The part where the survivors are left in the water. It starts off with people shouting and talking waiting for the boats to come back but after a while it gets quieter and quieter till only a few people are left. At some point around this time a nurse came by to check our blood pressure (and basically check that everyone was still alive) I tried to get out of him how much longer it might be till I got the result of my scan, or at least some information of any kind, but he angrily told me that everyone was very busy and it would be some time. At this point I was beginning to loose it. I was thirsty, hungry, uncomfortable and had a splitting headache from not eating or drinking for hours. I felt like crap and I felt guilty for feeling like crap because there were people there who were much worse off than me. My partner who had gone home earlier and told by staff not to come back managed to ring through and find out that I would be seen in the next two hours or so. She texted me this information, which I, despite actually being there could not get from anyone. The battery in my phone was now in the red and this alarmed me more than anything because without it I’d be cut off from anyone out in the real world.

It was at this point I broke down. I felt lost and alone, shut off from the world, feeling like crap and utterly humiliated. The more I felt this way the guiltier I felt for being upset at all, which mad me upset even more. No one cared. No one who walked by bothered to ask if I was ok despite being visibly upset. I felt like those of us in the corridor were forgotten, discarded pieces of human trash, rather than sick people in need of care. It was inhumane and the more I though of it that way my upset gave way to anger.

An hour or so later another nurse came around to check on us and she was far more sympathetic than the previous one. She asked if the pain was bad and when I told her that it had subsided she asked had they given me anything. Eh, no. I wouldn’t want to have been in severe pain seen as they had all but ignored me for the last six hours. She took my blood pressure and heart rate and saw that it was a little elevated. “Are you anxious about being here?” she asked. I looked at her in disbelief thinking: “Are you kidding me?”. I asked again when I might be able to go home and she said that she would see what she could find out for me. I didn’t see her again for another hour but when she did come back she finally brought a doctor with her. This was the first time I’d seen anyone since I was sent through from the waiting area and the first doctor had finished her shift. It was now 9.45pm. The doctor told me that I had probably passed the stone myself and that my scan, and my bloods were all clear. Finally I could leave. Well, not quite. I had to wait another ten minutes to get the shunt removed from my arm, but then at last I could bid my dimly lit green prison behind.

On the way out I passed the woman I had seen come out earlier to the waiting room to see her daughter and had broken down. She was still alone, lying on a trolly in the corridor, looking utterly lost and dejected. I finally got home at 10.30 pm, 12 hours after I had first set foot in the hospital.

I understand that things get busy in the emergency ward. I understand that staff are working under difficult conditions, but nothing excuses the deplorable treatment I witnessed and suffered. People go to hospital when they’re sick to be helped, not made feel worse. It wasn’t even the waiting that was the worst. It was the indignity with which we were treated. The staff, when not treating us directly, looked on us like we were a great inconvenience to them, like we were just a problem and they were the victims of some great injustice. Surely this isn’t the way to treat sick people? No one wanted to be there. I certainly didn’t. I understand too the need for “infection control” in the presence of swine flu, but if you’re going to abandon people in a corridor for hours and hours with little or no contact, the least you can do is let family members stay with them. Instead people, many of them elderly, were left abandoned, scared, hurt and alone in that corridor from hell.

If you live in Ireland at this moment pray you don’t get seriously ill. I would hate to be at the mercy of that system with a serious illness, and I’ve heard first hand horror stories from those who have. The even more annoying think is that I have private health insurance that I pay for every month despite my taxes supposedly paying for our public health system, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. You have to wonder what’s the point. I am still shocked and appalled by what I experienced, and even more so by what I witnessed. The health care system in this country is fundamentally broken. I should never have been sent to A&E but the waiting lists for out patients are so long often doctors have no choice but to send people to the emergency department.

The medical profession gets very defensive when anyone complains, often passing the blame on to the government, but while Government decisions are probably a lot to blame, the hospital is far from blameless. Staff, despite being under tremendous pressure, need to understand that whatever stress they’re under the people waiting for treatment are feeling far worse. If people are going to be left to wait then you have to at least treat them like human beings while they do so. I witnessed some terrible inefficiencies in the system too. My details were taken by at least three different people, all asking the same questions, and none seemed to know that others had already asked. No one knew later on the name of the doctor that had first treated me and expected me to remember it. Why when they’re doing triage can they not do the blood tests there and then seen as they know they’re going to have to come back and take them later. And another thing…. We’re often told that the waiting lists are made worse by the amount of “drunks” frequenting A&E and yet while I was there, I didn’t see a single drunk person.

The Hippocratic oath that medical professionals take says: “do no harm”, and yet in the Irish hospital system, people are coming out feeling worse off than when they went in. Something has to change. For a few days after my visit to A&E, every time I closed my eyes I saw that fucking corridor and I was only there for what in the end was a minor issue. What kind of mental scars must people who have gone through worse come out with. Is being treated with dignity so much to ask?

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