This and That, Page 25

The last two stories are shorter than the first two. You’re welcome. Here’s #3.

Mrs. Ozy started her new job here on the night shift, 7PM to 7AM. Within the first three months she came home and told me there was a nurse who came in for the day shift smelling of alcohol. I asked if it was possible she’d just been partying late and the smell was more or less residual from the night before and Mrs. Ozy admitted that nurse two came in smelling of alcohol every time she worked. I then asked if she seemed to be impaired. Mrs. Ozy said she couldn’t say for sure since she only saw her for a few minutes during shift change.

Nurse two had been there for quite some time and Mrs. Ozy had just started. No one else seemed to notice or at least didn’t say anything, so once again Mrs. Ozy decided to do nothing. I believe that in spite of the danger this was the best option since we already had evidence that management would not investigate and would instead put the accuser on the spot. As it turned out this was probably a good decision, if a good decision were even possible.

Feel free to imagine what kind of patient care she was giving at this time.

Nurse two got worse as time went on and before six months had passed I was hearing about nurse two showing up a bit tipsy and giggling inappropriately. We had several long conversations about this and decided to notify management anonymously. It turned out to be unnecessary because a secretary called administration and told them there was a nurse working drunk. There aren’t many people like her. She confronted nurse two and told her she had called and turned her in. Nurse two was removed from the unit that day and sent to rehab, again with the promise that she would be eligible to return after she completed it.

She did complete rehab and no one has been able to smell booze on her breath since. I am suspicious, but that may be just me. Shockingly, she is still on the same unit and so is the secretary. Things are a bit stiff on day shift these days.

And here’s #4.

We needed to see a specialist for a minor problem one of us had. Our family doc is black, by the way. That’s only important in the context of this story.

He advised against seeing one particular specialist in town and would only say that he thought we would be happier with another doc. Unfortunately there are only two of his specialty in town and the other guy had a very tight schedule and couldn’t be seen for two months. We got an appointment with Doctor two. When we went in to see the doc I noticed that his pupils were dilated and he acted like he was on speed. Several times we had to ask him to slow down so we could understand him. Near the end of the visit he wrote a script and advised against filling it since many insurance companies didn’t cover that particular drug. He made a disparaging remark about the Medicare drug plan and how inadequate it is. I asked if he thought it would ever get better.

I have no idea what we did that set him off, but he went into a tirade about President Obama and socialism and a bunch of other stuff. He yakked about how we work too hard to be politically correct. He used the words “socialist” (okay, who cares), “monkey,” and “porch monkey.” When I told him he needed to stop talking, he started screaming; his receptionist came in with an apologetic look on her face and got us the hell out of there. She told us we still had to pay the bill, which we did, but I can hardly wait to see our family doc next month.

Okay, that’s it. I could tell a bunch other stories, but the thing to take from this is that Mrs. Ozy is only one nurse out of millions, and she’s had at least these experiences in twenty years. I wonder just how bad it really is out there in the medical community and whether I want to ever go into the hospital.

Next week I’ll be back to the usual.