No Rooms

15th January (Thursday) - Today, it's one hectic day. The amount of discharge = the amount of admission. Even more, because not many patients are fit for discharge, and the people who wants admission are unreasonable. As I had said many times, they seemed to think we can just throw our patients out of bed and reel them in. Sorry to say, folks, but hospitals/ hotels/ restaurants, anywhere in the world in fact, has limited beds/ accommodation and seats. Please understand, people come in here because they are ill, and they aren't well enough yet to discharge. Yes, I know you have family members who are also ill, but please, for God's sake, give our patients the chance to recover. If we nurses can discharge the patients, we'll gladly do so, but it's the doctors'/profs' job to discharge patients. Certain areas we can't cross the line, and yet they still don't understand what's the meaning of the word LIMITED.
Okay, scratch that. Sometimes I think people are too thick-headed. Myself, included, but at least, come on, know the boundaries. I even brought a girl to a room which we don't even have time to clean fully (No time for housekeeping, we just chucked all the rubbish, turn the mattress over, set up a new fresh linen, top up with admission kit and gown). Just nice the cleaning lady was just about to clean the toilet and she went, "No, I don't want this room." For crying out loud, you think this is room service? That's the only room left. And it's not as though we didn't tidy up, we did, we cleaned it rather nicely instead of waiting for housekeeping, except for the toilet, I mean, you don't expect the nurses to be maids, right? (Yet another thing that patients will never understand, nurses ARE NOT maids) Sigh, why is it so hard to please people???
We ourselves are busy like hell too. Running after profs, procedures, sending patients up and down for scans, patients who insisted on being discharged, it's a non stop cycle. I myself followed one prof, the moment I'm done and wanted to write my report, bam, angio room called for the patient to be sent for a fistulogram. But my report... D: The TL is basically chasing me down, so alright alright, I grabbed the folders, served my patient his anti-hypertensive drug and whisked him off to below. Then just as I came back up, Doctor came to see his little babies. There's no need to ask which room is it. He only has two, so I just grabbed both folders and braced myself for the first one. The family are the whacky type, I say whacky in a polite way, but others call them much worse than that. I spent an hour sitting with him in the room as the grandmother and mother give themselves tons of headaches by asking in-depth questions. What's wrong with you people??? We are giving you the easy way but you are making things so difficult for yourselves. I still got the bruises that the kid gave me due to being kicked multiple times because he hates nurses. It has to be a one hit perfect observation, because the kid doesn't have patience. With the faulty oxymeter and the lousy sensor, that's impossible. Sorry kid. (Hence why I refused to study in post basic paediatric care, but also mainly I don't have tolerance for kids, only for babies)
After that, it was a rush of observations since no one wants to do. With all of our thermometers missing and left with only the crappy slow one, not many patients are happy about it. Well, what can you do? When I first entered there were four, then there were three, then two and finally, left the lousy one. All the fast ones had gone poof. Vanished into thin air.
After all of the crazy pandemonium, it was only near 1 after the TL had came back for her break that I rushed for mine. Not even thirty minutes are up and I rushed back in after wolfing down at top speed and I got called to bring a patient back up from pacemaker insertion. Sigh... No one else can do it cause everyone are too busy. So what to do? I dumped my container and bottle, grabbed the kidney dish full of supplies, and most importantly, ice pack and rushed down. Since I haven't even seen this patient before, I had to ask them for Prof So-and-So's patient. Oh, there she is. Ohhhh, my ice pack is too lousy, not even half an hour had passed and it's already not cold. Darn it, I knew I should've taken the large hunk of ice one instead of the lumpy one.
Once done, I did the usual post op observation and wrote my report at top speed. Then the CI (Not the one who is particular, another one) asked me to also monitor the heart reading. Wha-at? Where are we going to get those heart-reading machines like the HDU? Oh wait. I recalled we got that super Philip machine for close monitoring. I think we can use that, and the CI said yes, I can use it since it's for close monitoring. So after hopping up and down for the electrodes. I switched the machine and struggled to find a bedpan and measuring jug. Urgh, we are having severe shortage of bedpan liners and measuring jugs here. HELP!!!