Recently I found it necessary to enter an American hospital due to dehydration. The dehydration was caused by severe gastrointestinal problems following (I suppose) the eating of some tainted food.
It is no fun being in a hospital. The doctor gave me a choice of two hospitals to enter. I chose the one where both of my paternal grandparents died. This was done at the suggestion of a family member. Perhaps it was thought that I might undergo the same end? (just kidding). I don't really think so. The advice was given in good faith.
I learned a few things, though, about American medicine and health care (at least in the hospital I entered as a patient).
I became ill and was sick for about 10 hours throughout the night with diarrhea and severe projectile vomiting. The next morning I went to a clinic to see a doctor. I have health insurance, but it does not cover office visits. Although my tongue was clinging to the roof of my mouth and I could barely walk or speak due to weakness and dehydration, I was told that we would have to pay $120 before the doctor would look at me. What a blow that was! My wife wrote the check. The final bill just for that visit was an additional $165.
The doctor found out that I am a missionary to Indonesia. He immediately seemed to want to conclude that I had developed a blood clot as a result of long-term flying, or that I had brought to the USA some exotic Asian "bug." Actually, it was neither. I pretty much knew what the problem was--bad food--from somewhere! I had already been back in the USA a couple of months, and blood clots or exotic Asian "bugs" would have already made themselves apparent long before the time I became ill.
I was given an IV in the doctor's office to help replenish my fluids. The problem was that the nurses in the clinic could not seem to insert an I-V needle into the back of my hand. They stuck me several times. My veins were quite obvious to the naked eye, and it should have been no trouble at all. My wife was trained in nurse's school, and her philosophy is that a nurse gets one try to put in the IV needle, and if she cannot find a vein or botches the job she has to stop. It is possible to give her second chance. But, more than two tries indicates some level of incompetence. Three nurses tried to perform this simple procedure that has been done on me several times in other clinics and hospitals both in the USA and in Asia (with success on the first try). Well, they caused a lot of unnecessary pain. While all this was going on, I looked at my wife; she looked at me, and we both knew what the other was thinking--"One try only... They do not know what they are doing!"
After the IV bag was connected and the contents finally dripped into me, I was taken to the aforementioned hospital. From the start it was clear that not too many so-called professionals knew how to do their job, or they just did not care. If it had not been for my dear wife who stayed by my side and really did the job others were being paid to do, I might have died. My blood pressure dropped dangerously low--and I usually have high blood pressure.
I had been ill for about 18-20 hours before anyone decided to run tests on the contents of my stomach to see just what kind of "bug" was making me so ill. That was also a surprise because it should have been one of the very first tests to do.
I was in the hospital three days and was discharged while I was still sick with some of the same awful symptoms that put me there. That was another puzzle. There were a lot of strange things that happened while I was a patient there that we could not understand, and some of which seemed to go against proper medical practice (we could make a list of about 15-20 matters).
Another puzzle was that I waited about 7 hours or more to be dismissed from the hospital after the doctor told me (at about 6:00 AM) I would be released very soon that day. I was eventually released at about 7:30 PM that evening.
Only one RN acted like she was competent, and she did her best to help me. As I was awaiting the papers for dismissal from the hospital, a nurse's aide came into my room to remove that pesky IV needle (I thought that was primarily the job of an RN, not an aide). The nurse's aide was wearing perfume and bright red nail polish. It should be known that such things as strong perfume and colored nail polish are discouraged for health care workers in hospitals. Anyway, she did not clean the area of the back of my hand where the needle had been inserted. Nor did she wear sterile gloves. She ripped off the tape and instead of pulling the needle out gently backwards from the way it had been inserted into my vein, she lifted it up vertically and pulled UP on it and yanked it out! OH! What pain! Then, she took a piece of balled up cotton she had brought with her into the room--unwrapped and balled up in her bare hand. She slapped the cotton on my hand and put a band-aid on top of it and walked out! When the RN came in I told her about it. She took off the bandage and cotton, cleaned the wound, disinfected it, and properly applied a bandage--thank-you! My hand and arm were swollen and red streaks ran up my arm for several days afterward. I had to do special hot damp cloth therapy on it to reduce the swelling. And, we wonder how so many patients in American hospitals get staph infections!
What was the best part of staying in that hospital--other than leaving it? Getting to eat banana-flavored popsicles when I could not hold anything else down. I am certain that I will soon receive a bill from the hospital, and the expectation will be that I am supposed to pay for less-than-good professional health care.
In Singapore, my experience has been that test results are often received the same or the next day in clinics and hospitals. Doctors take real time with their patients. Money is not the bottom line. And, some doctors actually apologize to their patients without fear of being sued for malpractice. They are really human and humane! They act like they REALLY care, and I think they do.
If I ever move back to the USA one thing I will miss is the very good, even great, health care I have received in Singapore, as contrasted with some of the health care I have received by some practitioners in America. This is not an indictment against all American health care workers or hospitals. It was one stay in one hospital. On the other hand, health care in Indonesia is another story.
SPW
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