RMCO - Stop Bashing Local Healthcare

MCO has now slowly transitioned into the RMCO phase, meaning instead of being confined, business can slowly open after being closed down throughout the MCO phase (Some of my friends moved to online business so that they are able to sustain a source of income) , but there's also the unfortunate ones who are forced to close down because due to lack of income, or their business are unable to transition online. The moment RMCO started, I took the opportunity to try to support local indie business to keep them going. I probably won't be able to make much of a difference but I try to at least put in around double figure to keep them going, as much as my budget allows. 

            With RMCO, certain restrictions have been lifted. Last time some patients couldn't come to our side because some of them stayed too far away, which is over the distance limit. So some of them had been forced to postpone their appointments, shuffling back and forth. The worst cases are oncology and surgical patients, whom needed their chemo treatments or had surgical history (mainly post-op). With the MCO in place, it was so strict to the point where the authority force you to turn back. The same goes for non-urgent cases like travelling out of state. I was nearly forced to turn back until I showed my license and then they let me go. 

*I have seen news where family members took advantage of their families' privilege. Eg. Your spouse is a healthcare professional, but to avoid the hassle, you misuse their letter and license. Please do not be that type of person. I even made sure my family don't do that, because ethically, it is wrong. If healthcare professionals could go on the 2 months MCO break... Wishful thinking. 

In my honest opinion, I wished the MCO had extended a little longer. I spoken with colleagues and doctors and they said 2 months was a little too soon. It's not that we wanted it to go on, but we haven't gotten a solid foundation yet (Furthermore, we felt that we haven't fully control everything yet), and this is the main reason why: When the government announced that RMCO phase started, guess what happened. A tsunami of patients came flooding into the hospital. During MCO, you are allowed only one or two person to accompany to the hospital to avoid further complications. I can tell you when RMCO came about, I seen whole families coming into the hospital, including little children and babies. If you are telling me that they are coming for the pediatrician's appointment, I get it, but no, it's back to normal again. (I'm being a little sarcastic here.)

            Confined spaces like elevators are restricted to four or six at a time, depending on size and capacity. One day I decided to use the elevator because my knee was hurting so bad because on that particular day, I was running around the department. I was alone when I got on the elevator, but once it reached a floor -

Source: lparchive.org|125 × 125 animatedgif

10 people came swarming into the elevator, forcing me to a corner. Furthermore, some weren't wearing mask (!) Luckily I was standing near the door, so the moment the elevator reached my floor, I was out. Don't give me the ignorant excuses ("Oh, you mean the lift capacity is limited?"), boxes or crosses has been marked everywhere now, not just lifts but seating areas as well. Not to mention our Ministry of Health and government had been stressing on social distancing every day. I never understood why locals like to say our healthcare system is awful. I asked my doctors, most of them pioneers, on various healthcare system in the world. Surprisingly they said ours is the best. Even I was surprised. This is just a few of the things from the top of my head which they told me:

• Our healthcare is considered one of the most affordable in the world (internationally)
• Our healthcare is accessible 24 hour. 
• You don't need to make an appointment to see a specialist. 

Speaking of which, I still see people being ridiculously paranoid. Yes, it's okay to be paranoid, but don't be overboard. You only end up mentally stressing yourself. ("What do you people know? You guys are just nurses!") <--- Common backlash we get from difficult patients. You know, even though we don't say it out loud, we're scared too. You come out for your appointment and go back home, but for us nurses (and our fellow healthcare colleagues), half of our days are spent in the hospital. Who knew what are we carrying on our clothes, hair, hands... The moment I reach home,  I quickly shower and dump my laundry into the machine, making sure I avoid everyone, including my dogs until I have showered and my clothes fresh. This is what a lecturer taught me long ago. Before touching her baby, she made sure to go straight to shower, strip her uniform and once she's done, only then she allowed herself to touch her baby.  

Since everything is still slow moving, I may not post often, but I'll try to share stories every now and then. Stay safe, and please, practice the SOP and wear a mask and wash your hands.

** I have gotten comments from...challenging patients who claimed we are so lucky (in a sarcastic or nasty way), that we still get to keep our job, whereas they are forced to stay at home. Depending on your company policy and laws, you still get paid a certain wage. We have no choice but to work, because like it or not, healthcare is essential to everyone. And ask any healthcare workers, why do we risk our life to come to work, because we wanted to help you. It is never about us. Please don't act as though doctors and nurses don't have their own personal matters, or how lucky we are. Some of us were so overworked to the point where we couldn't even take break to spend with our loved ones. Throughout MCO, we came to work to help those in need. So please, stop saying how lucky we are and how unlucky you are. Be grateful with what you have, every little thing counts.      

MCO Entry # 5

 Another day, another chapter. 

It has been...what? Week number....? You know, everything seemed to be the same. Checking the COVID update, going to work, make sure to adhere to the new SOP, keep myself sane by occupying myself with my favourite things: Books, writing, drawing, rinse and repeat in that order. Nothing new. Grocery shopping is now a little bearable. There's no more food hoarding (I hope), so things are back on the shelves again. One thing that really boomed during this whole period was online shopping and food ordering. I used to think the latter was cute until I realized, while trying to order my favourite drink  - Because on that particular day, I was feeling a little lazy to go out of the hospital - and this is what it roughly says:

ALL PRICES CHARGED ARE EXACTLY THE SAME AS OUR IN-HOUSE MENU 

You can't fool me with that sweet line, same goes for buying books. I'm a bookworm, I compare prices between several bookstores, so you can't fool with me with marking up a book price ridiculously high and then slapping a discount that says <insert number> discount, which is basically the normal price that everyone is retailing for. I love this drink very much and it's one of my guilty pleasures whenever I'm having a rough day. What ticked me off was they increased the price by a dollar, and to add insult, charging five whole dollars for the delivery fee. I ended up having to pay nearly double just to get the same thing that I usually do. The cheek of it. I do order some food online, but only if I'm desperate, and that's usually if there's promotions like free delivery or getting the same thing that has its price marked down. Mainly I stick to house food because I'm a picky eater.

        MCO got extended and extended till around June. Slowly, life is slowly going back to normal, except with the SOP guidelines:

• Social distancing
• Registering with QR Scanner for tracking 
• MASK ON (NO MASK, NO ENTRY)
• Hand washing (Sanitizing, wipes, just make sure to wash your hands) 

         Now that our patients are slowly coming back.... Sigh, if I thought things were bad, this is worse. As mentioned before, people had started becoming paranoid to the point where they refused to touch our skin when we need to hand charge forms to them, claiming that we are unhygienic. Some health professionals treated us as though we are expendable ("Oh, hey, make sure you guys check my patients temperature." "Aren't you all scared going near patients? What if you all get sick? What if the patient is a suspected COVID case?") When you're a healthcare professional, you always need to be in close contact with people, especially your patients, because that's our job. What we can only do is wear our mask, goggles, boost our immunity and hope for the best. I've seen people (non-healthcare professionals) outside who are so paranoid when that they stood so far away trying to take our temperature as per SOP. Jesus Christ. 

        The one thing I really want to stress on is why are people wearing gloves. Like why? Patients tell me, "Oh, because hospitals are the most dirtiest place in the world." I say it once, and I'll say it again till I drill it into your head. Wearing gloves are not a good solution, even the Ministry of Health says so. You touch a surface while wearing your gloves, then you touch something else wearing the same gloves, and the cycle goes on to the point where the gloves looks scary. Have you ever seen sweaty gloves? It's gross and scary-looking. Patients were quick to clap back at us: "You guys wear gloves as well." Let me emphasize this. We only wear gloves when we are doing procedures, not for hours. Ministry of Health had stressed that HAND WASHING is still the best way to reduce contamination. Furthermore, you touched so many surfaces that we don't even know whether your gloves had been contaminated or not. Those were the days where things are so simple. Health professionals advice you based on their experience, people accept. Now, everything is "Mr Google/ My friends says so..."

*This is 5 minutes after donning my gloves. Notice you can see near my thumb is getting a little sweaty.

*This is after an hour. I could go on but my hands had started to itch, so I took it off. The sweat acted like glue and my hands felt sticky. Disclaimer: Some people's hands sweat much faster.

         Once again, I'm going to say this... Everyone is different. Your friend may have experienced this symptom, friend number 2 may not have the symptoms as mentioned. You can't expect to be the same. A good example would be I have a knee injury where my bones were about to rub against each other because there's no cartilage, but there's not much pain unless I do aggressive actions like running or jumping. Someone else may have the same diagnosis as me but they don't feel pain. Stop lumping everything into the same basket, and please get a consultation when in doubt. 

          Recently, I was reading this article online on trying to lengthen my hair and they mentioned that you need to use this serum and this vitamin otherwise your hair wouldn't grow. The mentioned products were pricey and are imported from the States. Harbouring doubt, I went to consult with my doctor who happens to be an expert in hair and he basically confirmed my doubt. There is no such thing to lengthen hair, you can only repair your hair or increase its density to make it healthy. Why I mentioned this was because I have a friend whose hair I envied. She often have to cut it because her hair grows fast, like she can cut it to chest-length and 2 weeks later, it'll be waist-length. I wished my hair could grow like that. It has been 3 months at point during MCO where I haven't cut my hair. It went from shoulder-length to nearly chest-length. I'm trying to get it to waist-length because short hair doesn't suits me at all. 

           On a parting note, if you can't remember to wash your hands, play this song.

 

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQn0z6xa8II

Sesame Street: Washy Wash Song | How to Wash Your Hands

If you have a hard time figuring out how long to wash your hands, then sing to this:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDpt62wTAdc

Genovia National Anthem - The Princess Diaries 2 - John Debney

MCO Entry #4

We're on a roll now.

4th Week of MCO
Government came onto the news. Announced that due to the constant rising cases, MCO is extended. Most people just accepted it resignedly. Honestly, we don't really mind MCO anymore, because here are the good points:

•   No traffic jam (The constant dilemma)
•   Tons of free parking (Yay! No need to constantly drive around in circles looking for an empty    space)
•    No crowd (I'll explain this one a little, what I mean is you don't see a huge family involving grandparents and kids out in the open. You'll usually only see one person who is in charge of buying groceries and supplies for the family)

The cons: Hoo boy. Where to even begin? MCO seemed to have brought out the worst of people. I rather not list it down because you'll see more strange, bad things down the line. 

Same old same old. Not many people around. Our blood bank is running low on blood due to the pandemic affecting everyone. Since there's no blood drive, we are in a pinch. People seemed to think, "Oh, but we have enough blood out there right?" Hell no. If you look at the statistics we are actually having a shortage of blood supply. For example: traumatic cases like accident require at least 2 pints of blood. Brain surgery, not so much, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. There was one time I attended a case where the patient was vomiting fresh blood and my colleague and I rushed her to emergency. This was during lunch hour by the way so there's no one around except us on standby. Thank heavens that there's a whole team standby and they needed a blood transfusion immediately, and guess what happened. Shortage of blood supply. So what's next? Use up your universal stock AKA O negative. Usually this is a last resort because in the event of an emergency and you do not know the victim's blood type, O negative is the safest.

Doctors are trying not to do surgeries unnecessarily but I encountered a weird family for pre-op. Since they only speak Mandarin (ugh, I may put up a post one day, just not right now...), they had a lot of questions regarding the pre-op. I don't now what they discussed with the doctor since I wasn't in the clinic, I only got a rough summary regarding that the doctor mentioned something and they weren't happy about it. Customer service got involved and the story went something like this...

*Story is edited to protect confidentiality and privacy. 

• Patient was scheduled for op on next week. Doctor advised them to check on something (something related to the blood bank).
• Patient wasn't happy, miscommunication (?) Went to customer service to complain how can we have a supply shortage of blood. 

Oh for crying out loud. Sometimes, things are just beyond our control. Blood bank shortage... That's because due to the pandemic, there weren't any blood drives, furthermore, as mentioned before, blood were needed to be on standby for traumatic cases (Emergency, accident, sudden excessive hemorrhaging) God, what on earth happened in there? Guess I'll never find out since I only had the brief story.