I'm Hungry

What an interesting call. I just had to write about this misuse of public funds and the apathy/laziness/stupidity of some nursing home/assisted living center staff. This past Saturday morning, we raced around the 610 loop to a call that came in as "Chest Pain." On our arrival to this assisted living center we found the ambulance crew wheeling an 91 year old lady on the stretcher. So I turned around and hopped in the back of the ambulance to get ready to run an EKG and decide if she needs advance life support(ALS) of basic life support(BLS).

The ambulance crew told me that the front desk nurses/help said the patient was short of breath, had chest pain and had ischemic heart disease. Sounds serious. Like a "real" emergency. I looked at the patient who did not look like she was in any type of distress, but looked like she was along for the ride-straight chillin.

I like to get the story straight from the horses mouth. So I asked her what was wrong with her today. Without missing a beat she said, "I'm hungry." I asked why she needed an ambulance for that. She said, "I don't know." She then told u how she was hungry and really wanted some milk, but that she had none in her room, so she went to the nurses station. Next thing she knows, they call 911 and she is on a stretcher. I asked her if she was ever short of breath. She said she was 91 and has been short of breath for 4 or 5 years. She also denied having chest pain. I ran a 12 lead EKG just to cover my you know what. It looked as good as it could.

I asked her if she thought she needed to go to the hospital, and she said she was just following the orders of the staff. She asked if we could stop by McDonald's on the way so she could get something to eat, and then chose the hospital according to how good their food is. We all agreed that Methodist Hospital has the best food. So we left her in the caring hands of the ambulance crew.

When they got to the ER, the triage nurse asked for the patients "chief complaint." He said "hunger." The nurse didn't believe them and thought they were joking. The nurse then asked the lady if she was really hungry and she said," of course I'm hungry, these guys didn't stop at McDonald's on the way here." They were told to place this poor lady on a wheel chair so she could wait in the waiting room.

I take a lot of issues with this call. More firemen are injured in car accidents than any other job hazard. I take issue with us racing to a fictitious call risking our lives on the aggressive highways of Houston. And why? So that a nurse has one less patient to deal with, or maybe because she is fully incompetent at doing her job of caring for her elderly patients. It wasn't fair to us, the patient, the hospital, or the citizens who may have had a true emergency at that time, who could have received delayed care. Is it too much to ask people to do their jobs well?

If you want to make sure your elderly family is getting the proper care, often it is best if you do it yourself. As a matter of fact, God expects us to. "But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God." 1 Tim 5:4. If you can't physically or medically do so, then you better make darn sure well the people you are paying to do their job, are fully capable of doing so.