Hospitals are a Crisis with a Capital C.
I’m back at the hospital and making a right pain of myself. Being both a New Zealander and a woman makes me the worst sort of downplaying patient: embarrassed at the fuss and determined to not be a nuisance, which of course has me causing a fuss and being a nuisance.
‘‘I’m perfectly fine,’’ I tell the nice nurse on Healthline this morning. ‘‘There’s nothing actually wrong with me,’’ I tell the paramedics as they heave me into the ambulance; ‘‘I’m as right as rain’’, I tell the doctor who’s looking suspicious.
Anyway, I’m back and things have taken a turn for the worse. Not with me – definitely not with me – but whereas last time I was here the hospital was in a serious condition, today I’m sad to report its status is critical.
Two months ago I joined the throng of people languishing in the emergency department’s waiting room; today I find the waiting room is now the emergency department.
People have been treated and then returned to the waiting room for lack of anywhere else to put them, a bit like laundry you pile somewhere because the drawers are too full to put it away.
‘‘The emergency department is at capacity with a waiting time upwards of five hours,’’ a voice over the loudspeaker says. ‘‘Part of the emergency department is being used as a ward.’’
Later today there’ll be a news story about this hospital. ‘‘Save ED for emergencies,’’ it’ll urge people, which is apt, but I reckon we should just save ED fullstop.
Because in what used to be the actual emergency department I hear one phrase over and again from superb staff trying their damnedest in unmanageable conditions. ‘‘There aren’t any beds,’’ a nurse says to a paramedic; a doctor says to a patient; a specialist says to a little grey woman who can’t hear her through her mask.
‘‘Thank you once again for your patience and kindness towards our emergency department staff,’’ the loudspeaker says.
And always those staff are apologising. They say they’re sorry for the wait, sorry for the lack of beds, sorry nobody’s come to see you yet.
The doctor who comes to see me is from the UK, where he fled the crumbling National Health Service only to find New Zealand’s is rapidly following suit. He says we’re not there just yet, but we will be. ‘‘Give it a few months,’’ he says of this mess. ‘‘I’m getting used to corridor care.’’
In the corridor, beds and stretchers are lined up end to end: a young couple sleep entwined on one, an elderly lady stares at the ceiling from another. She has her handbag plonked against the cot sides and her bare shoulders poking above the blanket. When she lifts her head to call for help, the back of her hair is all flat like a baby’s gets from a pillow.
My partner goes to find a nurse and I pull the blanket up over her shoulders. She says we’re kind people and tells us she has no family, though what she does have is a broken pelvis: I know this because I’m sitting next to her in the corridor when the doctor breaks the news.
This is New Zealand’s hospital service. This week the health minister announced a raft of changes to ease ‘‘extreme pressure’’ in the system, but still refused to call it what it is.
An old lady with a broken pelvis lying in a corridor waiting for someone to take her to the toilet: how the hell can this not be a crisis?