Hospital Health Care Today

I have been in the unenviable position of being hospitalized for the first time in many years. Bummer. Well, yes hospital stays are never fun but I was fortunate enough to have a family doctor who was really on the ball and saw my symptoms as serious enough to place me in the medical facility and get several specialist involved in solving my illness.

It turns out I had a blood infection that had latched on to a couple places in my  body. This information did not come easily and there was a lot of medical detective work involved in solving my dilemma. In fact I asked the infectious disease doctor if my case was unusual as it took almost two months and three extended hospital stays to narrow down the problem. Her answer? “Their all like this”! Once again; bummer.

Well there is a happy ending to the story because I am now on the mend and have been able to stay out of the hospital for three weeks so far. But my health problem is not what I want to tell you about. My hospital stays is what I want to talk to you about.

The last time I was in a hospital was quite some time ago and apparently things have changed quite a bit. My recollection of a hospital visit is the same as looking back as a kid pulling into a gas station with dad and three attendants come running out to serve you. Pump the gas, check the oil, clean the windshield, check tire pressure. Now a days you are lucky if you can find one guy to give you a paper towel cause your hands got soiled putting the gas in yourself. Well, I found my hospital stay to be comparatively similar.

I was in one of the finer hospital facilities in southern California. Very much one of the best. This was no county medical center. (No disrespect to county facility’s) This was a prestigious private facility. So I am certainly not complaining here, merely reporting.

The hospital itself was fine and the help, for the most part, was great. The problem I saw most was that the people who really keep you alive, the nurses, are so overwhelmed with too many patients each, that they do not have the proper time to really care for you. What I noticed was each nurse had to prioritize in order to be affective. More time spent with sicker patients than the healthier ones.
Each nurse had 5 patients they were responsible for. As soon as one was released the nurse was immediately given another one. One of the problems is  that not only do nurses have to take care of the patients, they also have to document everything you could possibly imagine that could be documented, so that the doctors have a clear picture of the progress. This includes the process of releasing the patient when ready and doing the intake work when a new one arrives, often from the emergency room and usually under pressure.

The bottom line here is truly that profit has become the prime objective in medical care. Again, I would not blame this on the wonderful medical personnel that take care of us, but rather the corporate mentality that has taken over our country’s , once fantastic medical concerns. Do people come from other country’s just to get medical care that can be afforded in the United States? Yes. But does that justify the downward spiral of our country’s future health.

My message here is simple. We are all being cheated out of the human right to be able to seek decent health care, when needed. Is this all the whole “Obama Care” deals fault. I don’t think so. I just think it’s like every other story you see now a days. It’s greed.

On a side note, nursing is still an honorable career and the wages aren’t bad either. Doctors diagnose, nurses heal. Check out our TutorZ nursing tutors.