Compassion is the way to go

Today was our last day in casualty. We are skipping tomorrows work to leave for the garden route with Marion and Avril. I have heard that it is amazing. I’m quite excited!! As for the work day, the lady with the insulin overdose was still here, and up out of bed yet again wandering around trying to get out. I found out that before we came in for the morning, the security guard was slacking off and she got out of the hospital and started running away! Somebody finally noticed and went out to get her, but how crazy is that?? An escaped psychosis patient in nothing but a hospital gown and diaper, and this is nothing surprising to anybody working here….I was in complete shock!

The disturbing tik/heroin/dagga addict was still here as well, I’m guessing still waiting for the social worker to figure out her case. And, there was something else very disturbing that I saw today; each bed in the huge room is only separated by a curtain when it is actually pulled out. There was a curtain pulled half way around a bed, put partially exposed to the rest of the room still. A body was lying on a metal wheeled table right next to the bed covered by a blanket. He was dead and just sitting there exposed. I asked the nurses what has happening, and they said it was a suicide and so it was a police case. They had to wait for the police designated personnel to come take the body, however long that would take, so the body just had to wait there. I closed the curtain so that nobody else had to see it; if I was disturbed why was nobody else?

During the very slow day, I turned to notice that a very sickly man had fallen out of bed! That’s quite a far drop, and he was a completely wasted AIDS patient who couldn’t even walk anymore. He was tied to the bed (with a diaper, I might add), and somehow managed to get it undone. He must have slid under the metal railing along the bed because he couldn’t lift himself to climb over the bed; he was way too weak, but skinny enough to maneuver himself under the railing. He had latched onto the bed beside him, and pulled himself under. His hospital gown and diaper had come off on the way down, so he was lying naked on the floor holding onto the poor woman next to hims bed, which had moved completely sideways. Nobody had seen him or helped him yet, so I nudged a doctor to notify them that he needed help—I’m definitely not strong enough to do that on my own. He ran to go get somebody and never came back…?? So I grabbed another doctor and they grabbed a few of the interns to help get this man back into bed. I felt completely terrible. He had a very weak voice and was moaning for somebody to help him, and because it took about ten minutes for somebody to actually get over there, he thought nobody was coming, so he was practically crying. One of the interns came over and held his hand and told him that they were going to get him put back into bed. At that moment, I wish I would have taken more time to listen to him and be compassionate; to actually come over and hold his hand and let him know that we were going to help, and cover him up. He was covering his parts with his one hand towards the end. But, I was busy running around trying to find somebody that could assist him. I wish with all of my heart that I would have been by his side for part of that time.

Fifteen minutes before it was time to leave, a man was rushed into the hospital with a gunshot wound to his calf that had broken his tibia. His clothes were cut off of his body, and the bullet was determined to have come in and out—the entrance and exit wounds were found. So, since it was also determined that he had broken his tibia, they cleaned the wounds, and put him in a cast. He was screaming in agony, and it was quite a quick process. Miles and I were running around frantically searching for everything the doctors needed for the procedure, and then were scrambling to hand everything to the doctors as they asked for it. He was given some pain medicine and was okay, which was good. We were late for uncle though; we kind of lost track of time during all of the craziness. Time for our weekend trip!