Inhospitable hospital

I always have a high regard whenever I talk of Silliman. However, for once, I'd like to speak of something I didn't like.

It was my dad's birthday yesterday but it was also the third straight day that I wasn't feeling well. I had cough, colds, headache, and stomach ache. After class that night, I went home immediately to attend dad's party. I got some lechon and a lot of dessert. Later, however, I was starting to feel worse. My cough got harder and I had shortness of breathe. Finally, I asked to be brought to the hospital.

We were at the emergency room of the Silliman Medical Center and immediately some nurses got my blood pressure, temperature, and amount of oxygen. I knew it was a standard operating procedure but still their alertness impressed me a bit. They told me to wait while a doctor was coming to check on me. So I waited... and waited...

Finally, about 30 minutes later, the doctor arrived. She did some tests on me and recommended that I was to be nebulized. I waited for another 30 minutes before the personnel prepared the equipment for the nebulization. While waiting, I observed everything that was going on in the room. There were about three patients (including myself) around at that time, while there were about 10 hospital personnel (doctors, nurses, etc). No one was really busy. Most of the time, they were just chatting and sharing some gossips. One doctor came in with a pair of Converse shoes. He tried it on and showed it to the rest. Another was busy with her Greenwich pizza. I suddenly had the feeling I wasn't in an "Emergency Room." There I was, having difficulty in breathing, but nobody even bothered to check on me from time to time. In the end, I was at the hospital for almost 3 hours!

If I thought that was bad, it was even worse a few days later. Not satisfied with the results of the several tests performed on me, and since I still wasn't feeling good, my mom wanted me to have an X-ray exam. A cousin, who was also not feeling well the past week, came with me to get X-rayed too.

So there we were at the Medical Center ER. We told the personnel there that we wanted to have an X-ray. Again, the nurses were quick to get our BP, temperature and stuff, and then we were told to wait. Somehow, I was beginning to think that the reason they immediately take all those tests on you was so that you'd not leave anymore - kinda like "once in, no out." We waited there for more than an hour. We were getting impatient. There were just a few patients and a lot of hospital personnel just talking amongst themselves. Finally, a nurse passed by. My cousin asked what we were supposed to be waiting for. She just shrugged and said that she doesn't know, and pointed to the desk. Talk about being helpful. I thought nurses are there to help and assist the patients. We felt insulted and even got more irritated. We waited another thirty minutes until a relatively older nurse approached us and asked what we were waiting for. I couldn't help but raised my voice a bit, telling her that we were there for almost two hours already waiting for someone to give us the go-signal to have our X-rays taken.

It turned out that they didn't know we were there for X-ray. It was some kind of miscommunication. But it was more of them being unsystematic.

Finally, we got the form and went to the X-ray room. In the end, the actual X-ray test took just a couple of minutes. And we had waited there for more than two hours!

I hope this doesn't happen often. It really is a bad image not only for the hospital, but the whole institution of Silliman as well, considering that most of the nurses came from the university. Silliman University boasts of a consistent 100% nursing board passing rate. Sadly though, passing the board doesn't necessarily translate into being a good nurse.

I don't mean to criticize the hospital as a whole. It so happens that a relative is the current Medical director of the hospital, and I know for sure that she's doing very well. Perhaps the incident at the ER was just an isolated case. Maybe it was just a few incompetent people. I don't really know for sure.

Now I know why someone who goes to the hospital for check-up is called a "patient." You must have that virtue to survive there.