Dear patient of the
Royal Hobart Hospital.
I love you. I
want you to get better and get out of the Royal. The best way is take control of your illness.
Accept responsibility for your illness. You are the cause and also the reason
you will get better. The majority of illnesses are associated with lifestyle. In
your case it may not be true but the moment you accept ownership of your
illness you enter a wonderful place.
I have based my
opinion on my experience in the hospital. Which kinda went like this.
A consultation with
one doctor. Whenever I mentioned a
symptom he said he had seen it more often than me and one case ten times worse.
Consultation with a
support group who wanted my email address. So they could send me weekly
newsletters, dates of support group meetings and other ways they could give me
information and support me over the next few years. I said I wanted to get
better and my aim was to work towards not needing their support and they said,
“Have a nice day. Goodbye.”
Consultation with a
doctor. I pulled out a list of questions I wanted answered. The doctor was
stunned. I was there to listen to him, not ask questions.
I asked for a copy
of my notes and was told I had to fill out a form and apply through at a
different part of the hospital and they would explain to me how to get
there. Elsewhere in the hospital I
encountered staff who photocopied pathology results and gave me a copy and said,”
don’t tell anyone”.
After a few weeks
lying on my back I decided I wanted to get out and not return and that it was
up to me. The system was not interested in promoting health or preventing
patients returning. The system was
biased towards ED. The Royal was expert
at picking people up from the bottom of the cliff and resuscitating them and
hopeless at preventing people falling over the cliff. They found me at the
bottom of the cliff and I was expertly resuscitated and completely ignored when
I wanted to prevent falling in the future.
There is nothing
especially good or bad about the Royal Hobart Hospital. It is typical of a
western hospital in the way it is staffed, managed and run. The only exception
is morale which is probably worse than average. Which is probably because we
are a small stable, prosperous island state with very distant neighbours and
little news apart from the Royal.
In my seven weeks in
the Royal I never heard a member of staff say, “I love working at The Royal. We
do good work.” They used to they raised their eyebrows and shake their heads
whenever they mentioned The Royal.
Does poor morale
matter to you? It does because a front
page news’s story or politician on the evening news leads to a decrease in
staff morale. Staff in bad moods affects you. You will suffer. A politician
will celebrate getting their face on TV and the next day you will receive worse
treatment. As a patient I used to watch the evening news. Just to make sure we
never made it.
There is one thing
you can do about staff morale. Thank the staff for their work. Whenever they do
something for you, thank them. Tell them they are doing a good job. It’s
probably true and means that in the future they will be happy to return and
help you again. It is a very easy task I
am giving you. Because most of the staff are neat, tidy, punctual,
compassionate and know their work.
In the ward one
thing you will watch is the nurse complaining about the next ward, the doctor
complaining about the registrar, the pathology staff complaining about
administration. You could call them power struggles. Everybody will get involved including the various
wards, administration, the general practitioner, the lab, the nurses, the doctors
and the registrars.
If you have worked in
a big organization you may be used to these power struggles. If you are like me
then it will be new to you. You have no choice. Get used to it. Go the same way
as me. Assume that a power struggle means people have pride in their work? Assume that there is nothing wrong with power
struggles. Everybody can argue about how
to move forward if they are all moving in the same direction.
Another thing you
may see is the staff becoming confused about who the patient is. The staff
would speak to my significant partner and then she would try and interpret. I
would then ask her questions and she would say ,”We never discussed that” or “It
never came up” or “Next time I will mention it”
or best of all, ”I was there. I know what happened better than you.” I
saw this happen to other patients so it was a common habit and may happen to
you. Please be careful.
What are you going
to think about when lying in bed 24/7? Well I don’t know what you will think
about. I can tell you what I thought about. I never thought, “How lucky I am,
that I have been admitted. I am grateful and thankful for the services provided.”
I spent a lot of
time feeling disappointed that I needed a bed, staff and services. I was never grateful
that it was provided. I thought about
myself and my particular illness. I did not want to come back and I realised
that the staff were not going to emotionally invest in my future. I had to take
control. I had to find everything out about my illness. I had to get all this
information from the staff.
Some staff were
incredibly perceptive and would help me.
Others saw me as a threat to their control. I eventually, by various mean, found out ways
to manage myself. It is up to you to work out which staff will help you.
What I wanted was
to get better and not return. What the staff wanted was to be neat and tidy,
punctual and perform their procedures correct. This is what they were expert at. They were sober,
neat, tidy and polite. They were kind,
considerate and expert at following standard procedures. There was a standard
procedure or standard form for every situation which was followed. After discharge there was even a standard
form for feedback.
Good luck to you and
all the best with your recovery. Politicians will talk about bed numbers, staff
numbers, number of services provided. Staff will concern themselves with
standard procedures but it is you accepting responsibility for your illness
which actually matters and will get you better.
Taking control of
your management will not guarantee you eternal life but it might make what
remains more enjoyable. Aim for a balanced life with physical, emotional,
mental, social, spiritual health and a healthy diet free of excessive drug use.
Good luck.
BIO: Alan Carlton is a retired Hobart dentist. He was admitted to The
Royal in 2015 and 2017 (including ED and two weeks in ICU). He has now retired
from work. He now spend his time running, playing tennis, gardening and
visiting every cafe in Hobart.
