The System

And I'm talking about the healthcare system here. Yes, it would be unfair for the System's part if I rant against it, thrashing its process and insinuating its paradigm. But to what I have experienced today, I guess I'm just giving my two cents regarding the management of the system.


I went on a certain health service of a hospital because this grumbler of a tummy keeps on bugging me. Nagging me and leading me to the Throne (if you know what I mean). This went on for three days unchecked, only providing oral rehydration therapy with Gatorade. Exasperatedly, I gave up and willed myself to have myself checked-up. And the tale begins here.


First, I am 'warmly' greeted by the nurse of the health service unit with a scowl for a face and told me to write my name in the list with an air of nonchalant. Being the good boy that I am, I followed her instructions. Then she told me to return this afternoon for the check-up. Right. Wrong move for me. Should've went straight to the Ambulatory ER unit, complaining of that damn irritated bowel and cussing people who got in my way. But I never yielded to my raging ego. No, not this time, I told myself. So I had myself checked-up, focused nursing history here, focused physical ass- wait, there wasn't any focused physical assessment done. So it was the doctor's turn to diagnose me. She didn't even gave a damn about physically assess me. Seriously, people. With a half-assed nursing health history and simple history-taking, you're prescribing me with, first, a medication not available in five drug stores I'd been to. And prescribing me before any laboratory results reach your desk. Ugh. Then I went straight to the hospital pharmacy, which to my 'delight' is jam-packed with watchers and patients (probably) alike. I am literally in a madhouse. Against better judgement (kuripot instincts), I have to buy from a drug store outside the health facility. Goodbye, moolah! Hello, (probably but hopefully) working medications! 

'warmly' greeted

We are constantly being reminded to 'connect' with patients. Finding a loophole where you can establish rapport with the patient, to at least alleviate him/her of any anxiety that s/he may be feeling. But, hell to the friggin' no. I was treated, at the very most, a scumbag who has disturbed a sleeping tyrant. Good way to get connected with your patient. We can attribute this to the burnout nurses feel because of such a heavy case load that they are currently handling, especially in a health service unit where patient census varies as much as the distance from Heaven to Hell. But how can we 'probably' solve this burnout syndrome of our nurses? Let my altruistic and idealistic student-nurse mind start with the train of thought:

First, we relieve them of a heavy patient case load and assign a more manageable one.

But who would take care of the relieved case load?

Hire a personnel mix which would address the peak demand of patient census in a unit?

But where are we going to get that much nurses?

We have an excess of nurses in the country, for crying out loud!

But are they competent enough?

Another question branches from this question. Are they competent enough? With the 'nurses boom' we have as a result of an uncontrolled response of mushrooming nursing schools to the 'nursing hemorrhage' we had during the early part of this decade, how are we going to make sure the quality of such a large quantity of, supposedly, competent nurses?

Here's a radical solution: Enforce the quality control measure of warning and eventually closing nursing schools that never met the cut.

But have you listened to the news about why such a powerful enforcement cannot be enacted? Political pressure. How can we move forward if we are kept abound by the chains of the Political Past. 

wasn't any focused physical assessment

Once again, we are being taught of utilizing both subjective (History) and objective (Physical Assessment), even involving diagnostic tests before starting a medical management. 

----currently whisked away by 9GAG. You know how much my attention span lasts. Worse than a goldfish's short term memory. Hopefully, my half-finished post has sent the message. Or I have to edit it and repost it. 

Until the next ranting. Ciao~