Agonising state of our public hospitals

WE arrived at the emergency department around 1pm on a Sunday. My daughter had been on a ‘‘fun’’ date the night before, trampolining with her thenboyfriend. They’d had loads of fun.

Next to the trampoline was a large pit of foam rubber chips, that they assumed one could jump into. Catastrophe struck when she jumped high and landed in the foam. It was only a very thin layer – one or two chips deep – and she instead landed soundly on her tailbone on a concrete floor.

She immediately knew she’d damaged herself. She was in agony, with tingling in her legs. After unsuccessfully looking for help, or anyone in a uniform, they literally broke out of the place, Johnny trying to help carry Katherine while scaling a fence.

My daughter insisted she’d be OK, and refused Johnny’s insistent suggestions that they needed to get her to a doctor. By the next day Katherine was still in awful pain. We asked her brother to babysit, and I marched her, or rather helped her shuffle, to my car.

Sitting down was agony. Lying down was more agonising, and standing up was still excruciating, but to a lesser degree. On arrival, we went to reception. I cased the joint. About eight people ahead of us.

Katherine explained her accident, and we were asked to sit down. Three hours later Katherine had sat, stood, tried to get comfortable, anyway she could, at least a dozen times. The eight people before us were all still waiting too.

It’s important to note here that I always assume the staff are doing the best they can, and have far more serious cases to deal with.

I went up to reception to ask, nicely, how long it might be till we were seen. The receptionist, who’d clearly been answering the same question over and over, to the other poor sick and broken bastards, replied nicely, but apologetically: ‘‘At least another two hours.’’

I looked at Katherine. The Maxigesic was wearing off. We resigned ourselves to the wait, and moved back to our plastic chairs. Two hours passed, and maybe one or two people had gone through. Again I returned to the receptionist: ‘‘Ummmm, sorry to bother you. Clearly you guys are under the hammer, but how long do you think?’’

The receptionist looked down, and back up at me: ‘‘Possibly another two hours?’’

It was then Katherine said: ‘‘Let’s go home. I’ll go to my doctor tomorrow. I need painkillers.’’

Last week a friend had a 15-minute eye test follow-up appointment at the same hospital. When he arrived, there were perhaps 20-30 people in the waiting room. He was told he was eighth in line. He sat for six hours. He didn’t complain. He got candy and a Coke from the vending machine and scrolled through his phone for 400 minutes.

He said there was one doctor working, and he was horrified when people got angry on learning the sole doctor needed a break to get a coffee. I can understand their frustration, but this doctor was not a robot. My goodness, I’ve interviewed 30 TV stars in a day, and had catering breaks at least three times in eight hours.

There are a lot of people aghast that Health Minister Andrew Little is dissolving the infamous district health boards. I’m not even going to challenge their reasoning, but I, for one, applaud a measure of centralisation of our hospitals.

Most New Zealand hospitals are woefully short-staffed. Nurses and ancillary staff are generally paid poorly. Doctors at public hospitals are expected to do the impossible, while boards try to save money. I know it’s a folly to reminisce about the ‘‘good old days’’ when our public hospitals were the best anywhere, but those hospitals were great.

Yes we had wait times, but not like this. I don’t blame the hardworking doctors and nurses. Not at all. I understand the frustration of clients taking whole days off work to get a 15-minute appointment, but I bet we see things bloody change, albeit perhaps gradually, when we stop spending money on boards, and consultants, and start spending more money on actual medical staff and Kiwi healthcare.

Now if we could just get the Government to reinstate the Ministry of Works, we might get the housing and roads we are desperately in need of.

Perish the thought!

People got angry on learning the sole doctor needed a break to get a coffee.