My boyfriend, having registered to sweaty sessions of Bikram Yoga, came home one night with an infected knee. When he finally decided to consult a GP, (on a Saturday!) no clinic could take him since he had not yet registered with his local practice. I’ll spare you the dull details of his many phone calls the to NHS direct line. However his infection got worse diring the weekend. (Again, I could go though all the yucky details of his open wound but let’s just say that it looked very bad!) Boyfriend finally managed to see a GP the following Monday, where a nurse kindly cleaned his abscess and sent him home with a prescription of antibiotics. However, a few days later, it became obvious that the medicine was not working at all. His condition had worsen again and his leg was swollen all the way down to his ankle. He could barely walk. The clinic finally referred him to the nearest Emergency Room, where we waited together for approximately 2 hours.
Boyfriend saw a very friendly intern and a senior doctor, who performed a very small incision into the wound. We were out of the hospital in no time, with again, stronger antibiotics. He is currenlty back on his feet, how and about, wandering the streets of London.
Having recently discovered Medical Anthropology, I took a particular interest in the relations of power between hospital staff and patients. Having worked in a ER as a receptionist myself, I have a good knowledge of how this system works. Being referred to Accidents and Emergency means you’ll need to go through the triage process. Basically, the ER staff briefly assesses your health condition and makes sure you can handle waiting a few hours in the waiting room. Nurses usually take your temperature, make a brief review of your medical history, but mostly assign you a priority number, which , in brief, determines how much time you’ll spend waiting once they send you back to the waiting room. This wait, unfortunately, is nothing like waiting to be served in a restaurant, where first arrived and usually first served. A & E waiting rooms work so that priority cases are being called up first. (Which at times, can be a little frustrating!)
But one thing that I noticed was the tension between the waiting patients. Most of the people in the waiting room were trying to compare the severity of their condition to that of others and thus predict in which order they were most likely to be called. This is exactly what my boyfriend was up to. And he found himself being wrong most of the time. Being sick can change one attitude and turn yourself into a more self-concerned behavior, which, I must add, is absolutely normal. There was often no consideration for other patients’ state. People seemed very focused on themselves, and worry, fear and tiredness could be sensed inside the room.
As it is often stated that the vulnerability of sick/injured patients places them into a dependent and inferior position toward medical staff, I found that this could also be felt among fellow ER patients. And even though some patients did socialize, most of them kept to themselves, and seemed to consider other cases as a real nuisance…
Isn’t it fascinating!
1 Comment
July 6, 2009 at 2:42 PM
What an interesting entry, Aud! I remember the first time I came to an urban London emergency room- I was shocked! I was used to my nice little rural town with a generally quiet A&E… none of this waiting about for hours! At first I attributed the wait, the stench of urine, the blood on the floor to the NHS… but I soon realised that if you’re in an urban emergency room anywhere it’s going to be like that! Just watch ER!
Anyway- speak soon! xoxo h