Sunday 11 April 2010

Frustrations.

On Friday I was incredibly grateful that I had had an almost unheard of 6 hours sleep on call the night before, or I think I would have flipped out and lost my post-holiday calm. I was phoning our referral hospital to get the results of a scan that a patient had had there 2 weeks before. They told me that it still hadn't been reported. I asked to speak to the head of department to discuss that this wasn't really appropriate, particularly as our patients travel a long way to see us for their follow-up which is difficult to do without results. She explained that they had no one to report the scans (the hospital has not renewed the one of the radiologist's contracts as they don't have money to pay him, and the other one is on prolonged leave). They're continuing to do scans in the hope that the situation might get resolved.
Next up I rang to book an endoscopy (a camera test down a patient's throat) for a patient. I was told that the piece of equipment needed was broken. It has been for the last 4 months and they're not sure when or even if it will be fixed. Their manager told me that in urgent cases they are using their colonoscope (the one for the other end) but otherwise they advise phoning again in another month.
Situations like these make me feel so frustrated. Things that should be available suddenly aren't and no alternatives are arranged. And part of the problem is money, but it also sometimes feels like there's a lack of desire to provide a good service.
These situations also make me feel fairly useless. I am still so dependent upon tests to help diagnose patients problems. Coming here has certainly improved my clinical diagnostic skills but I think I still have quite some way to go.

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